Beets, Spinach, and Peas: A Confession

Despite repeated attempts, I've never gotten a good crop of beets or spinach or peas -- noble vegetables all, which I hold in the highest esteem and like to eat in all manner of dishes. (Does any California restaurant that doesn't serve roasted beet salad with arugula and goat cheese really deserve it's business license?) I keep trying to grow these three because the boutique samples I've been able to produce are a delicious incentive.

Above is this season's entire crop of chioggia beets, harvested this morning. Only a couple have the rounded shape you expect in a real beet, the rest look like hot pink horseradishes. I wasn't scrupulous about thinning the seedlings when they sprouted last fall, and no doubt it was simply too crowded in the old wicker laundry basket that served as a planter. The greens look gorgeous, though, and shouldn't go to waste.




The spinach is going to seed and is looking lusher than it did at any point since being planted out last fall. I think this is the Gigante de Invierno, not the Bloomsdale. The California poppies have taken over the planting bed.

Throughout the winter months and until just recently there were enough spindly little plants to supply leaves for adding to salads, but nothing that would count as a real crop. I read in the San Francisco Chronicle that spinach just doesn't size up in the San Francisco area, so maybe that's the problem. The recommendation was to plant the large leaf varieties -- and it's true that the Gigante did better than the Bloomsdale.




These Caseload Shelling Peas were planted as seeds on March 19th, and represent the most promising set of pea seedlings so far, but were probably planted too late in the season. About half managed to make it to this stage. I think the rest got chomped because there are some tell-tale green stubs. Some of the ones that made it show signs of damping off: thin brown stems at the soil line.

Last fall I planted out two entire packets of two different varieties of shelling peas and NOTHING came up.

Sigh.

Salad Accoutrements

There is always something interesting growing in the yard to add to a salad.

Lately, one of the featured items has been calendula flowers. It's easy to pluck out the petals and sprinkle them into the bowl, where the little orange flecks make the various hues of green seem greener and more variegated. They don't contribute a noticeable flavor, but add eye appeal, and are reputed to have value as a medicinal herb with antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties.




Another salad accoutrement free for the picking are the blossoms and blades of the wild onion. The little white flowers add color and they both add a subtle oniony tang, just the right amount for a hyper-sensitive person like myself who weeps when there are raw onions anywhere on the block, or so it seems. As the plants mature, the blossoms stop being delectable when hard seed pods form at their base, but the tender tips of the blades are still quite good.




These flowers and seed pods on the miner's lettuce signal that their season of perking up our salads is about over. It's been a long run, but now I will stand back and let them sow seeds for next year. The pods are forming along this stalk, like tiny green coin purses filled with a wealth of even tinier round black seeds.




Even though I regret seeing the miner's lettuce go to seed, it's a fascinating process. First the heart shaped leaves become round -- I have no idea how they manage to do it. Then they launch a sub-leaf from the center of the main leaf. This smaller version of themselves hosts the flower stalk, along which the seed pods will eventually form.


The mainstay components and added features of our salads vary from week to week and month to month. Right now the miner's lettuce, arugula, cilantro, spinach, and Black Seeded Simpson lettuce are winding down and the Red Lollo Antago lettuce is long gone. But there is plenty of Forellenschluss and Bronze Arrow lettuce, along with whatever accoutrements can be found here and there.

First Freesias

Updated below


The freesias are late this year, at least compared to last year, which is the only data point available. And only the yellow ones came back.

The ways of bulbs are mysterious to me and I am sure there is something I should be doing to keep them from slowly declining. But somehow the lack of care increases the sense of wonder and surprise when they do manage to bloom. And I am in awe of freesias, which hardly seem to belong to earth, they are so intimate with light.

Regardless of how they got here, these sunny blossoms are a haiku-worthy wonder.

Yellow freesias shine,
Gold candles of light arrayed
like candelabra.

Update 4/12/10: Improved version by person recovering from a cold, not coming down with a cold:

Golden freesias shine,
Glowing cups of light arrayed
Like candelabra.

Also a better photo has been substituted; one which shows how the blossoms are arranged on the stalks and how they seem to be a source of light.




Last year the pink freesia appeared first, around March 21, while the plum trees were still spilling petals everywhere.

Baby Plums and Pears

The plum blossoms are gone and the only remaining traces of the rain of white petals are occasional brown spots on the chard and lettuce where petals landed and decomposed. Now, in the inevitable course of events, the first little plums are starting to form.




On the pear tree, the blossoms were battered by several days of rain. I find this photo unexpectedly poignant, with one last petal clinging to a leaf as the first minuscule fruits are revealed. It's a visual haiku.

Pear blossoms in rain,
Petals scattered by cold wind.
The tiny fruits are revealed.

A Cold, Grey, Rainy, Windy Easter Sunday

The blooms are out there, but there is no incentive whatsoever to put on an Easter bonnet and go out to admire the floral displays. It's another cold, rainy day in a series, with more predicted. I looked at the forecast and discovered that all the days I will not be home this week are supposed to be lovely while rain is expected for all the days I will be home. Is this fair?

I will console myself with photographs of flowers. These photos were taken over the course of the past several weeks.

Above is the Lone Poppy. Poppies have been blossoming all over the neighborhood and by the roadsides for the past two weeks, but not in our backyard. The same thing happened with the plum blossoms. We must have a micro-climate that is a bit colder and shadier than nearby front yards and roadsides.




Shown here are lavender, forget-me-nots and calendula, along with the mystery bulbs that were here when we moved in and come up every year without fail. Some year I will find out what they are called.

At first they were only in the front yard but I've been unwittingly transferring them to the backyard by raking up the live oak leaves in the front and using them to cover garden paths in the back. The little bulbs get raked up and carried along. They are a welcome addition, popping up all over with jaunty assurance.




Another front yard mystery bulb. These don't tend to grow near the live oak so remain sequestered in the front yard.




And still another front yard mystery bulb. Just a few of these appear.




A showpiece of the backyard is the Sleeping-Beauty-sized thicket of Cecile Brunner roses, which forms a privacy wall along the southwest edge of the property and provides habitat for all manner of creatures. One year a deer used the thicket for afternoon naps.

Also known as the Sweetheart rose, it starts to bloom in early April. Here is one of the first specimens. There are only a few so far, dotting the dark green wall here and there.




Some volunteer violas, descendants of the 'Lemon Sorbet' I planted several years back. They look ready for the Easter parade. Sorry, ladies. Better luck next year.

Some Things I Thought Were Dead That Aren't Dead

The killing frosts in December left a lot of blackened sticks behind that used to be sturdy perennials: salvia and sage, geraniums and fuschias. They all looked as dead as dead can be. But I know from experience that a plant that is a certain goner can fool you. So I let them sit there through the winter. Now, along with the rest of the burgeoning growth that is filling the backyard, these plants are reviving. Dead sticks are festooned with green. Above is Salvia elegans. The common name is Pineapple Sage and this particular one is Freida Dixon, a cultivar with pink blossoms.




This one is Salvia chiapensis. At its peak it has stunning bright fuschia blossoms, long and hollow the way hummingbirds like them. Evidently there are hundreds of salvias, some called sages, and all members of the mint family. (Factoid of the day.)




This is another Pineapple Sage, which will eventually have bright red tubular blossoms. It's sprouting from the base. The blackened sticks are about three feet tall and a few have some festoons. It is also festooned with a lady bug, for contrast.




This is a geranium, I don't know what kind.




Another geranium, with a friendly volunteer viola to keep it company.




A fuschia bush coming back strong.

It's not quite time to prune back the damaged parts of these plants. We are not out of the frost zone. I keep reading in the paper about local vintners who are watching their budding grape vines nervously, worried that one of the cold nights we've been having might encase those delicate buds in ice.

There is not as much at stake in our yard of course, but it's still wise to wait.

The Pear Tree is Blooming!

The plum blossoms are gone now and the plum trees are leafing out. But the second wave of bloom is making a dramatic display: our pear tree (see above), an old apple tree down the block, in neighbors yards tulips like huge Easter eggs on sticks, the cruel lilacs, mingling memory and desire, and the dramatic wisteria draped across entryways and fences. Some people, such as Michele Anna Jordan, regard wisteria as a favorite harbinger of spring, but I'm sticking with January's fields of golden mustard and February's plum blossoms. To me, spring is well along into chapter two.