The Urban Farmer’s Almanac

These days it’s not hard to run into someone extolling the virtues of eating local, or growing your own food, or getting in touch with your inner omnivorous dilemma. It can get a little old, even for someone who is all for it the ideas at hand. One reason is that it seems like a lot of extra expense or effort just to prove you’re “aware” and achieving your proper balance in the food system. Sometimes, a bag of Doritos just sounds delicious and kale is the last thing I want.

Then yesterday we ate our first salad of the year, thinning out the thick rows of lettuce. And despite the obvious cliché, it was different enough from our typical winter fare of crock pot meals to make us look up and say, “This salad is actually pretty amazing.” It was probably 15 minutes out of the garden, with a lemon-honey-mustard vinaigrette and some pepper, so light and tender that it just about melted in your mouth (in a way that wasn’t weird for a vegetable to do.)

The Jersey Supreme asparagus that we planted last year is just starting to come up.

I keep checking the asparagus bed for signs of life, and finally today there were two tiny little asparagus spears poking out of the ground. Asparagus patches take a couple years to establish so we bought crowns that were supposed to be ready the next year and planted them last summer. Asparagus are kind of the divas of the vegetable world; I had to dig an 18 inch ditch to plant them in, let them grow some, then bury them up to their necks, so to speak, in more dirt. However, once they’re established, an asparagus patch will apparently last 10 years or more. With any luck, they’ll be our first edible crop this spring, and for many springs to come.

It’s still technically winter, but the cherry blossoms have blossomed and it feels like an early spring. We have started some seeds inside, and some of the plants that were dormant are emerging from colder months. In order, below are photos of Swiss Chard and Pea starts inside, garlic coming up (planted in late December), rhubarb, and the new Egyptian Walking Onions.