Counting down two things tonight – the number of days until the first delivery, and the rapidly dropping numbers on the thermometer tonight. I don’t want cosmetic damage on what would otherwise be spectacular lettuces for the first week, so all available blankets, cardboard boxes, and other coverings have been arranged and weighted down against the gusting winds. The heaters are on in the greenhouse, and the tenderest baby plants are surrounded by gallon jugs of water and covered with plastic. I will wake up at 3 am having realized something else I could have done, but at the moment, I can’t think of anything else.
Here’s a bed of garlic – the onion-y looking stuff in the center – with lettuces and poppy plants (the lighter green.) No, you won’t be getting any products derived from poppies, it’s not that kind of CSA. I just like them.
If you look closely at the picture in the pea beds, 
you can see the little white flowers, each of which will set a pod – this variety will have 8-10 peas in each. A bowl of freshly shelled peas disappears faster than a bowl of M&M’s – seriously. But the sugars turn to starch quickly, so buying pre-shelled peas – or even peas in the shell – at a grocery store is not remotely the same experience. Dizzy Kitten spent 
part of the afternoon helping me put string on the pea trellises. Very thoughtful.
Our red and green lettuces are beautiful to look at
and very, very tender. Make sure you have your favorite salad dressing ingredients on hand, because you’ll be enjoying some wonderful salads this week!
A big challenge is monitoring the damage cause to the Asian greens and arugula by flea beetles, which leave tiny holes in the leaves. 
Flea beetles are almost too small to see, so they can’t be handpicked. I’ll be covering these little red choi plants with a row cover this week in the hopes of keeping the beetles away from the new growth.
Potatoes are looking great, although tonight’s frost will knock back this beautiful foliage a bit. We can steal a few new potatoes from plants by the 4th of July most years, but I’m hoping we can do so a little earlier this year because, tonight’s frost warning notwithstanding, everything’s early.
This morning’s breakfast included a few perfect 
ripe strawberries, twelve days earlier than any previously harvested here. We rarely have bug damage to the strawberries, but we do have a turtle problem! Box turtles will toddle through the berry patch and take one bit out of each of the biggest berries. I’m hoping Dizzy Kitten will harass the turtles enough that they make other plans this year. Perhaps it will solve the turtle problem and give me a chance to finish that string trellis without ‘help’.