Peas and Beans on The Way!
Posted: 4/20/2009 1:16 AM
We finally had a couple days of warm weather here and now everything in the back garden bed is flowering. The peas have reached the top of the trellis and have pretty white blossoms all over. Within a week, a pea pod will grow from each one.
Most of the bean plants have small clusters of flowers. I love the burgundy ones--I've never grown beans this shade before. I wonder if they'll taste different than the green or yellow beans.
The tomato plant is also flowering and so is the basil. I snipped the flowers off the basil so it will continue to grow more leaves. Then, I pruned the tomato plant a bit. I cut off the bottom sucker branches (the ones that don't have any flowers on them). That way, the plant will put its energy into the branches that already have blossoms and will soon be producing fruit.
More good news: I haven't found any snails in a week. The lettuce and spinach plants look perfect; there are no more bite marks. The Sluggo Plus really did the trick!
This week, I used some fresh parsley to make spaghetti sauce, even though the recipe called for dried parsley. When I substitute fresh herbs for dried, I use three times the amount shown in the recipe. The fresh stuff is just so much better! My son is learning how to cook. He made garlic bread to go with the spaghetti and sprinkled some parsley on top, before we broiled it. Yum! We're still harvesting lots of lettuce and making salads almost daily. I think I'm becoming a salad snob. I went to a restaurant with a huge salad bar and skipped it altogether. I knew the lettuce at the restaurant couldn't possibly be as good as the lettuce we grow at home. My favorite salad recipes from this week were Spinach Salad With Bacon and Chopped Egg (www.southernfood.about.com) and Caesar Salad (www.williams-sonoma.com). I brought the Caesar Salad to a barbeque last night and everyone loved it!