Spring's Bounty

For once, I'm not being sarcastic.  My fountain garden is doing wonderfully.  One of the asparagus plants is even trying a little.  The Brussels are sort of considering producing sprout stems, but at least the plant is alive and growing.  I hate to say it, but pesticides made the difference.

Artie is putting out his (her?) annual flowering stem, and I just found two very small artichokes sprouting behind the central bud!  The first time the plant flowered and then died, I thought that was it and cut off everything above ground.  Turns out, artichokes do that, then keep growing back.  Just don't disturb the roots, and you could have several years of chokes.

The ensuing broccoli crowns haven't been as large or compact as the first.  I missed the window on one, and it started to flower.  Picked off the yellow broccoli flowers and cooked up the rest.  Kind of looks more like broccoli rabe when it's loose like that.  Maybe the plant is trying to be trendy.  And thanks to the spray, there were almost no bugs in the new florets.  I felt ok about eating them because I sprayed the plant when they were tiny buds, as the directions suggested, and hadn't treated them in a couple of weeks.  Still washed them thoroughly.  I'm having the last developed crown this evening.  It will be a few weeks before any more mature, which is fine.  I'm kind of getting a little tired of broccoli.

Once the tomatoes start to ripen,  I'm going to have a lot of cherry tomatoes to deal with.  The plant is very happy, despite me accidentally breaking off half a branch.  There are plenty of other clusters to make up for the two that were lost.  I have started a list of things to do with a plethora of tomatoes.

I keep forgetting about the green onions.  I water them, but don't really pay attention.  I pulled one, just to see how they were doing.  The roots were strong, but the whole stalk was small.  I think I need to water them twice a week instead of just once, especially when it gets hot, because of the shallow roots.

The cilantro decided to flower instead of putting out more herb leaves.  I wonder if I'll get coriander seed out of it.

The mint is, well, mint.  I didn't water it enough and it almost died.  Half a gallon later, it was fine the next day.  Made a batch of basil & mint iced tea to use some of it.

I'm really enjoying the idea of going out to the back to get an ingredient.  I've always been like that with the lemons, but now I get to do it more often, for more things.  With a little luck, this will be a fun culinary summer.