Sunday, March 29, 2009

N.S.D. approaches

That's right, No Snow Day approaches, revealing the sights of evergreen and brown leaves, the sounds of birds returned, the feel of soft mud under foot and the smells... well the smells of all that stuff and more thawing.

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Winter sown lettuce seeds - Red Iceberg Lettuce (not pink, I stand corrected if not correctly) growing stronger.

Shoots are shooting and bulbs are blooming though today's rain prevented me from snapping an open crocus, here's a closed one.

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Snow drops, snow crocus, anything with snow in the title is a welcome sight after the long Ottawa winter. Anything except just snow.

It's time to assess what survived in the now open coldframes and that includes bietina (thin stemmed swiss chard also known as perpetual beet), earth chestnut, sperling top bunching onion, varigated chicory (don't remember the variety right now, sorry folks), scorzonera, parsley and corn salad.

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Salad medley in the coldframe by their fallen brethen. It was a hard winter for the under glass class.

In the garden proper, the overwintered edibles like top setting onion (also known walking / egyptian onion), rhubarb and garlic are early entries in greening up.

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I like these strange yellow red eggs that will be delicious rhubarb desserts in a couple months.

I think I might go back to that coldframe and make me a salad. Ah spring.

5 comments:

Daphne Gould said...

I thought I had an NSD yesterday, but found a small patch of snow left in the shade by the driveway. None of my overwintered plants have given me anything but rot and dead leaves. So sad. Maybe I'll have to go with glass next year too. A spring salad must taste wonderful this time of year.

Patrick said...

What do you think of scorzonera leaves? Do you like them?

Dan said...

Greens already, that would be great. All the over wintered stuff looks really good. The wonders of four season harvest.

I really like your yellow Crocus. My Crocus have not bloom yet but they are growing leaves. I must remember to order more crocus this season and anything else that springs up fast.

I follow 'Down on the Allotment' blog and she blanched her rhubarb for a few weeks by covering it with a plastic container. It produced pale stakes that are not as bitter, it also speeds up your harvest with the added protection. I am giving it a try with my crowns this spring, I will put a photo up of it on my next post.

Ottawa Gardener said...

Patrick: I find them a bit fuzzy to compare closely to lettuce but the taste isn't bad. I wouldn't want to eat an entire salad of scorzonera but it makes a nice addition to my mache.

Leigh said...

NSD - Gosh, I'm running out to investigate the smallest spots of bare ground in the gardens. I'm still pruning apple trees and the snow's too deep to drag the bush away....