Garden Time

It's about this time of year I really start itching for garden food. Fresh, delicious vegetables. And the farmer's market. (But mostly so I can eat samosas and egg rolls on a Saturday morning within blocks of each other!) Lance and I will start our seeds indoors and then move them outside once the threat of frost has disappeared. One thing to note, lettuce should NOT be started indoors. It's a hearty, early year vegetable and will do just fine outside. In a moment of longing, I made my garden list at work yesterday. Once again, I was astounded by the amount of produce we pack into our small, humble garden plot. This is what I'm planning on growing/killing this year:

• green peppers
• hot peppers
• green beans
• sugar snap peas
• cherry tomatoes
• roma tomatoes
• big boy tomatoes
• onions
• butterleaf lettuce
• cucumbers
• zucchini
• butternut squash
• edamame
• eggplant
• misc herbs - cilantro, basil, parsley, thyme, rosemary

New items are onions and eggplant. I think that onions are fairly low-key, we'll see about the eggplant. Lance and I consider a successful garden one that produces tomatoes. In the last 3 summers, our tomato harvest has been very hit or miss. Last year we had an enormous amount of pear tomatoes. We had so many that I was pretty tired of picking teeny-tiny tomatoes by the end of the summer. I hope that my romas do well, I love using them in cooking. They make the best sauces. Last year was the first time we successfully grew cucumbers and zucchini. Lance learned to love cucumber sandwiches and be suspicious of things that I might have snuck shredded zucchini into by the summer's end.