Lettuce Explosion
Just last week I was looking at my lettuce wondering when it was going to get big enough to harvest. I guess all it needed was a good soaking rain a few days of sunny warm weather. We were away for a few days last week and during the 3 days we were gone things exploded in the garden, especially the lettuce.
My lettuce bed is about 10 foot long by about 4 foot wide and it’s now overflowing with lettuce. Looks like we’ll be eating salads every night for dinner for the coming weeks. No doubt we won’t be able to eat all of this lettuce, so it’s a good think I have a neighbor that will be happy to have some.
I don’t mind all this bounty, I’ve been patiently waiting for this day and made a big batch of salad dressing on Saturday. My salad dressing of choice in the spring is a balsamic vinaigrette made with a dash of maple syrup, garlic, shallots, freshly ground pepper, sea salt, a bit of whole grain mustard, apple cider vinegar and a healthy measure of good olive oil.
Is there anything that has exploded in your garden in the last week? What’s your favorite kind of salad dressing?
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Hello Little Friend
Ever since we moved in here I’ve been hoping to spot a snake or two in the garden. A few years ago I found a dead baby black rat snake laying on the back deck, but I haven’t spotted a live snake until now. Yesterday, I rescued this little beauty from the outdoor cat.
I grew up around snakes and don’t fear them. We had pet boa constrictors almost my entire youth. Here you can see my dad when he was in high school with a big snake. We even had a pet snake that laid an egg once, which was super exciting for us kids.
I’m very excited to see this little guy in the garden. Sadly, many people are scared of snakes and kill them if they see them. Snakes are very beneficial to have around because they control pests. If they’re small they eat insects, slugs and other small prey, if they’re larger they can be of great help in controlling rodents. It’s important to learn about the snakes in your particular area, any that are venomous and the ones that are harmless. You should also find out if there are endangered snakes in your area. Educating yourself will go a long way in doing away with some of the fear you may have of them.
For years I’ve been building snake habitat in my garden. I figured I had snakes around and just hadn’t spotted one. I’m happy that I spotted this little guy and rescued him from the cat, luckily it wasn’t injured. Hopefully he/she will live a long healthy life here at Chiot’s Run!
How do you feel about snakes in the garden?
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Plant Spotlight: English Bluebells
Last fall I planted some Hyacinthoides non-scripta back in the maple grove. I planted them along the pathway interspersed with some daffodils. I’ve been patiently waiting for them bloom and late last week they finally started blooming. I read about these lovely in A Year at North Hill : Four Seasons in a Vermont Garden and added them to my list of must have plants. Since we have a lot of shade due to the many large trees, I’m always looking for beautiful things to plant among the woodlands.
English Bluebells. Circa 1500s, this fragrant, woodland naturalizer features dark violet-blue, pendant flowers on strong spikes. Commercially grown in the Netherlands as Scilla nutans (synonymous with Scilla non-scripta), this is most closely related to the indigenous English Bluebell, also known as the Wild Hyacinth. (from Van Engelen)
These little beauties should spread and eventually carpet this area of the garden, which I’m especially happy about because nothing grows in this area. Another great benefit is that these are deer resistant, since we have a big problem with deer eating everything in site that makes bluebells all the more attractive.
What’s your biggest issue that you have to keep in mind when choosing garden plants?
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The Parade of Tulips
I promised a parade of tulips when every single one had finally bloomed. Last week the last of the later tulips opened. Barring any extreme heat, the blooms will last for a couple more weeks. All-in-all, I should get over 2 months of beauty. There were a few glorious days when all the varieties I planted were blooming at the same time.
Just in case you’re wondering how I kept track of the tulips I planted, I cut the photos/names from the catalog and pasted them on a piece of paper grouping them by order of bloom. This gave me a handy chart to quickly be able to identify what was blooming. It also came in handy when making my order so I knew which tulips I was buying so I didn’t end up with all late flowering tulips.
‘Rai’ parrot tulip, a beautiful dark pink/purple and green parrot tulip. I only purchased 8 bulbs for this and they were planted in a pot by the back door. Parrot tulips are just as interesting in bud form as they are when in full bloom. This is the first time I’ve had parrot tulips in the garden and I must say, I’ll always have some from now on! (I won’t relist the Parrot King tulip, you can see this post if you’d like to see them).
All of the bulbs listed below were purchased from Van Engelen in lots of 50 or 100. I’ll include their description of the tulips after the name. The tulips will also be listed in the order in which they bloomed in the garden.
Blooming first was ‘Passionale’, which I’ve had in the garden for many years. Described as: huge, lilac-purple tulip has dark purple flames on the outside of its petals while the inside of the petals is beetroot-purple with a tawny-yellow base. Bulb size: 12cm/up. April/May. 16″
Along with ‘Passionale’ the ‘Rembrandt’s Favorite’ tulip bloomed as well. They make a perfect combo! This tulip is described as: a mutation out of Hans Anrud, this strong and sturdy bicolor is glistening snow-white with deep blueberry-purple flames. Bulb size: 12 cm/up. Late April. 22″
‘Pimpernel’ is a lovely lily flowering tulips, one of two varieties I planted. Rich purplish-red with green featherings. Bulb size: 12cm/up. May. 16″. HZ: 3-7.
‘China Pink’ One of the most popular of all Lily Flowering Tulips, this award-winner has lustrous, soft pink flowers with a white base. Bulb size: 12cm/up. May. 18″.
‘Cum Laude’ circa 1944, Cum Laude is dark campanula-violet with a white base. Bulb size: 12cm/up. May. 24″.
‘Virichic’ this jaunty beauty has an elegant, almost Lily-like form and exotic coloration. It opens dreamy pale rose with tawny yellow highlights and green flames and matures to a darker purplish-pink with green flames. Bulb size: 12 cm/up. May. 18”.
‘Greenland’ Also known as Groenland, this award-winner is a charming old rose color with soft green stripes from the flower’s base to its tips. Bulb size: 12cm/up. May. 20″.
‘Green Wave’ A terrific cut flower, this sport of Greenland is pastel mauve-pink with green flames and an exterior white base. Watch how wide it opens! Bulb size: 12cm/up. May. 20″
‘Elegant Lady’ Subtly changing colors as its blooms mature, this beauty has pale creamy-yellow flowers edged in soft violet-red. Bulb size: 12cm/up. May. 24″. HZ: 3-7.
‘Queen of the Night’ is a deep velvety-maroon, appearing as glistening black in the sunlight. Circa 1940, this award-winner is still the “blackest” tulip to date. Bulb size: 12cm/up. May. 24″. I have grown this variety of tulip for many years here at Chiot’s Run and it’s the one tulip that I find that doesn’t get eaten by various deer. The black color must make them bitter or something. There have been years when this is the only tulip to bloom in my garden.
I think my favorite combination from this year was ‘Queen of the Night’ and ‘Elegant Lady’. I planted these two varieties in a few clumps in the front foundation bed and I think they’re perfectly stunning together.
I also have a few other kinds of tulips that bloom throughout the garden that I planted a few years ago. I definitely gravitate towards the purple/pink/green range when it comes to flower colors. I’m not sure if I could pick a favorite, it might be ‘Queen of the Night’ or it might be ‘Green Wave’. I’m certainly happy I don’t have to choose!
Which of these do you like the best?
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Quote of the Day: Joe Eck & Wayne Winterrowd
Around Rome, where wild greens have been valued for over two thousand years, sophisticated diners consider themselves cheated if their salad of wild greens, misticanza, does not contain at least twenty-one separate varieties. Do they count them, we wonder, shape by shape and texture by texture and taste by taste?
Still, the point is well taken, for part of the pleasure of any wild salad is composing the dish outdoors, clipping a bit of this or that, a throwing in this texture or flair or color to balance or add variety to al the others. No wild salad ought to be of any one thing, unless, indeed, of dandelions, when one is really hungry for them; rather, it should be a sort of edible bouquet, at once as varied and beautiful as it is salubrious.
Joe Eck & Wayne Winterrowd in Living Seasonally: The Kitchen Garden and the Table at North Hill
A lot of you mentioned yesterday that you were enjoying dandelion greens and we are too, though they’re getting big enough that they’ll need cooked now instead of eaten raw in salads. The garlic mustard is also perfect right now, we’ve been eating a lot of it as well. The wild violets are also blooming and we eat the leaves and flowers in salads as well. I also need to start picking the blossoms to dry for winter teas.
Is there anything wild on you plate this season?
