Spring Harvest

Today my Fun Jen was ready to pick. It is a bok choi type of plant with frilly leaves and slightly narrower leaf stalks than bok choi. It is a little ragged because of the slugs, but not bad. As I walked past the chard, I figured they were big enough to pick a few leaves, maybe for a salad. Then I saw the peas. The snowpeas loved yesterdays weather. It was only in the 60s and wet. A lot of snowpeas were ready to be picked. I figured my first picking would be maybe one or two peas, but I got a whole handful.

Hmm snowpeas and bok choi....and left over chicken from last night. It was time to make Thai greens and chicken for lunch. It was a good excuse to pick a little basil and cilantro too. Ok so my cilantro is not very little. I always pick a huge handful when I harvest. I put it in a mug and cover it with a plastic bag and keep it in the fridge. It keeps very well like that. And I always have fresh cilantro available in the kitchen. My scallions aren't nearly full size yet, but I decided I would rather use a smallish one than a store bought onion.

I brought it all inside to wash up. As I washed, I noticed that some of the leaves of my bok choi still had slugs on them, six to be exact. I glared at them and squished each one. They weren't very big, just tiny 1/4" long slugs, which means they have been multiplying. I've been remiss about trapping them. Maybe tonight I'll put out beer traps for them.

It was nice to have a hot lunch for a change. I've been eating salad non-stop for lunch for about a month due to an inundation with lettuce. I do occasionally eat dinner leftovers, but not much else. This lunch had five things from the garden: bok choi, snowpeas, scallions, basil, and cilantro.

As I was writing this a rose-breasted grosbeak showed up on my branch. I took this fairly crappy photo through the screened window, but at least it is indeed visible in the photo. Most of the time I try to take photos of the birds through the window, they are unrecognizable. It is such a beautiful bird with a heart shaped red splotch. Much nicer than having to look at my slugs.