inarguable evidence: it’s spring

Never mind the calendar- it’s spring!  (We can celebrate again on the equinox, though.)  We’re turned soil at Stoney Creek, where the southern exposure and good drainage give us a head start, and there’s a bed of La Ratte potatoes planted already.  La Rattes are awesome fingerling potatoes which you will never, ever see in a grocery store, or even at most farmer’s markets…….but Cool Beans members will be getting them this summer.  They’re wonderful roasted with olive oil and garlic, or boiled, or wrapped in foil paper and cooked in hot coals.  Here’s a sprouted ‘rat’ waiting to be tucked into the soil.

These lettuces will be harvested long before we start our CSA shares, but you can get an idea of what’s in store.  They’re in the greenhouse at Stoney Creek, and they’ve been so successful this winter that we’re considering offering a limited winter CSA subscription this fall.  You’re looking at a red iceberg lettuce that’s just starting to curl in on itself to form a head.  This variety will have all the crunch of the iceberg lettuce we all grew up with, but it will have a nice fresh flavor, too.  The outer leaves will have more red color.

The onion seedlings you saw in an earlier post are getting long enough for their first ‘haircut’ – the goal is to encourage lots of root growth in the next few weeks, so they’ll get trimmed.

There’s about fifteen varieties of greens that we’ve been harvesting over the winter: collards, kale, two spinaches, mache, and several lettuces.  I planted broccoli raab too, but it’s just sort of sitting around doing nothing – I think it needs a certain day length to trigger the formation of the little buds.

The greens you see pictured here are close to maturity, but new flats are being started all the time.  This morning, we started twenty four flats of greens, broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower.  This weekend, the tomatoes will be started inside the house.  So never mind what the calendar says – for Cool Beans, it’s spring!

katie