Why is it that the best salad of the entire YEAR can only be had in spring?

This morning, after frantically planting as much as we could before the predicted week of rain sets in, we picked some spinach, lettuce leaves, garden cress/pepper grass and radishes, all from our greenhouses. For lunch I had the most yummiest, delicious salad in the whole world. (the only thing I forgot were the chives! Doh!)

I just love eating the first pickings! It's all the more exciting because last year at this time we had nothing in the ground yet! Hurray for doing better than last year!

What's your most exciting improvement over last year?

Well, you are WAY ahead of me, but congrats, anyway, even though I am jealous!!!!

I will have a garden this year for the 1st time in about 3 years, as I moved 2 years ago from NC to NY, and FINALLY have a place where I can have one....SOOOO...

I have started many seeds inside, and they are doing very well so far...some are heirlooms that I received from the GREAT folks on here, and I am just happy to HAVE a garden this year!!!

As a matter of fact, I stopped at a house this morning and confiscated 10 bags of leaves!!!
I asked permission, of course, (didn't want the police to come and get me!) and still have to pick some sticks out of them, but it's a start! And I have a source of manure available, for the picking-up...Yippee!!! Vicki

We ate home-grown strawberries today!!!!!!!

Okay, there were only three ripe ones, from one of the three plants I put in last Fall (the rest of the 100+ plants I put in this spring, and they are only just beginning to flower), but WOWEE they were GOOOOOOD. One for me, one for ds #1, one for ds #2. And even barely-ripe they were packed so full of flavor I thought I had died and gone to heaven! Mmmmm-mmm!

Hi...
The strawberries sound GREAT, and I am proud of you for sharing!!!!

I am sooooo lucky! I was going to try to do the whole lasagna garden thing, from scratch...you know...the yard is grass...and even got a great book from my library, which I plan to buy..."Lasagna Gardening' by Patricia Lanza...

But my neighbor has a great tiller and offered to till for me...he did it this evening...with my instructions...he tilled 4 beds, probably 4 x 20 feet, with about 2 foot paths in between, which I AM putting newspaper, etc. on for paths...

BUT, the best part is...the soil is BEAUTIFUL!!!!! The older lady that lived here, at least 5 years ago, had a garden there...I had to dig out a few tulips & stuff, but the area is SOOOOOOO much better...like 100% better than my rock-hard red, brick clay in NC....I am just overwhelmed right now....I COULD plant tiny seeds right now in this stuff!!!!

SO, it looks like all the wonderful heirlooms, as well as the other plants I plan to grow, will have a marvelous start!!!!

I hope I'm not making anyone TOO jealous, but I am so excited! Besides, I think we all should boast a little, after the people in California have been bragging about their wonderful, warm, weather, while many of us were still buried so deep in snow!!!

Thanks for listening to my ramble! ....Vicki

Last fall when it started to get really cold I harvested my small fall spinach patch and covered it with straw flakes. Uncovered about a month ago and last weekend harvested a whole grocery bag full of spinch (with a few onions that I missed last year). I ate spinach and onion salad for two days straight. And now it's ready to harvest again. In a couple weeks my new spinach will be ready too.

There is really nothing better than that first salad of the season--your whole body is energized--like eating Spring itself!

I've had pretty good luck most years overwintering spinach here, even with no row covers or mulch. It is amazing how fast fall-grown spinach can come out of dormancy and start producing big yields well before the weeds have even awakened!

This year I lost the whole batch due to heavy February rains that flooded the garden, then froze solid. The plants were buried under 3 inches of ice that froze and thawed for about a week straight. That killed it. Even row covers or mulch couldn't have prevented it. So I'm scrounging for that first salad this year. Might have to rely on purslane, dandelion or maybe even some wild asparagus!

Im still waiting on my spring veggies. We've got a light freeze predicted for Sunday morning. My garden salad will have to wait. But the Poke Salad is finally up & I put up half a years worth in my freezer yesterday. I can only harvest this time of year so I guess I'd better get cracking for the rest.

Vicki, do you have Half Price Book stores near you? We have 2 close by and they always have Lasagna Gardening there. I got Garden Primer by Barbara Damrosch there the day after I got an offer for it in the mail from Rodale. (Sorry Scott. ) I love to go there when I take a "mental health day" for myself.