A-buddin' and a-sproutin'

So Saturday I finally got around to digging up the plot I'd weeded the weekend before. Until then, it was Crazy Neighbour Lady's weed patch, but now I'm reclaiming it for cultivation. I even took the extra step of segregating all the smartweed so it wouldn't end up in the compost, since god only knows how pernicious it seeds might be. The ground was more compacted that I'd expected--I doubt she's done any tilling at all in the two years she's had it--so I spent a chunk of time breaking up clods.

With only a month or so before first frost, we were kind of limited in what we could plant. monshu wanted basil (or "some other herb we could freeze") but I didn't think that was enough time for a crop. So I decided to go with Scooter's suggestion of lettuce. At Gethsemane, we bought packets of seeds for mesclun, baby greens, and microgreens. (Plus a chrysanthemum and a packet of oats for cat grass--at less $20, it was without a doubt our least expensive purchase there ever. I wanted a kerria for the front, but what they had looked terrible.)

Scooter and monshu mocked me for looking for sprouts yesterday, per the instructions, but I glanced at the plot on my way out the door this morning and, sure enough, the microgreen section is alive with tiny seedlings. Only a week or two before we can harvest and reseed! I also saw the first open blossoms on the autumn-blooming clematis, although you still can't smell it over the reek of the garlic chives.

We got around to harvesting those as well over the weekend. I put some in my omelette Saturday morning and then monshu used some in a stir-fry Sunday evening. Unfortunately, I wasn't there to instruct him to use only the buds of the flower spikes and not the stems, so we ended up picking most of them back out the dish. Hope that hasn't soured him on the thought of cooking with them again!