Edible Garden Update

Strawberries in stacking planter

This morning I picked six strawberries. There are lots more that should be ripe in the next several days.  I don't have a large strawberry bed; just one small area along the driveway, and the stacking planter described in a recent post.  But it's enough to give me a handful of tasty berries day after day here in the spring; and since those planted in the stacking planter are an ever-bearing variety, I get a few along throughout the summer. Even a few strawberries are great on cereal or salads.




One of my favorite foods of spring is asparagus.  The season for it is all too short, and has already passed for this year. 

The edible I've been enjoying for the longest time this spring has been lettuce.  Since I started it in the pop-up greenhouse over the winter, I've had it for myself and my bunnies for several months now.  As the weather is becoming hot, the lettuce is beginning to bolt, or go to seed. As it does, the leaves become bitter. It will soon be time to pull these plants up and plant something else in its place.  I am tempted, though, to let it go ahead and flower and develop seeds.  Some people let a few lettuce plants go to seed every year so that they have volunteer lettuce plants around that spot the following year.  This website describes how to collect the seed so that you can enjoy free lettuce every spring for years.



Volunteer parsley

Last year I grew parsley and other herbs in this pot.  I let one of the parsley plants go to seed, and sure enough, I have volunteer parsley plants this spring.  It is already large enough to collect a few sprigs for cooking.

Blueberries

The blackberries are flowering now, and will not bear for some time.  The blueberries are starting to form; I will need to keep an eye on them so that the birds don't eat them all before I can get them picked. I have a hedge of five blueberry bushes.  They are a variety of cultivars; some early season, middle season, and late season, so that I can enjoy fresh blueberries for the longest possible time.

The tomatoes, peppers, cantaloupes, carrots, green beans and other veggies are all growing rapidly with all the recent rain, but are far from being ready to contribute to the dinner table.