Summer is blasting off like a coal furnace. It's that's humid heat, southern-style, the kind that makes tomatoes, zukes, and cukes explode into green monsters. The kind makes six-legged critters show their dominance of the earth and air. The kind makes iced coffee a necessity, and socks nothing if not intolerable.
Of course all of this means only one thing for the cool weather crops. Time's up.
After a spring that will go down as one of the coolest on record, and the wettest yet, I can now comfortably declare that this wasn't the best year for the peas and carrots of the world. First came the late snows, then the rabbit boom, then the rain, rain, rain, rain and rain.
This isn't to say that my cool weather crops failed. That would be far from the truth. The spring salad mix I ordered from Johnny's has my sister-in-law ready to rip out my father-in-law's lawn so that she can grow her own next year. Can't wait for that showdown. Our spinach was a revelation of sweet, tender leaves that made incredible salad and even better ricotta and spinach pizza.
But this weekend, monsoon-like downpours dropped inches of rain. Then the oppressive heat set in. A few heads of Boston bibb letteuce immediately rotted at their core. The spinach, seemingly over night, sent up long stalks to flower and seed, and my peas, my poor, poor peas said, "enough!"
I pulled them last night, attempting to get ahead of the creeping yellow that had already taken over many of their leaves. It was quite a final haul. The whole family pitched in, even Moxie the Boston took her share, tugging sweet snaps straight off the vine. The last harvest totalled 8 cups. Not bad for a little plot that was covered with snow two weeks after I planted them and then trimmed nearly to the ground by a young rabbit a month later. Four cups sit in the fridger. Four have been frozen and are ready to bag. I was too late for the spinach. That now sits atop the compost, waiting for the worms.
Now is not the time to lament the passing of the cool weather crops. As I mentioned, the tomatoes are taking off. The zukes have sent out thick, fan tipped stalks and are ready to bloom. The Swiss chard is ready to give it's first few leaves to my culinary imagination, and my corn is doing its very best to get knee high by the Fourth of July. Summer is here and my garden is ready. Come on, y'all, let's grow.
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