So, what in the garden has survived this brutal winter we've had? Only cold-weather plants, for sure. We easily lost half of all of our plants, and it's taken quite a long time to clean out the dead stuff and haul it all downstairs.
This year, we tried some broccoli for the first time: some Green Goliath and Waltham. Both appeared dead for the longest time, or at least dormant, but then, about a month ago, they started sprouting broccoli heads! We snipped a few heads when they got fairly large, cooked them up for dinner (hey, they're DELICIOUS!), and in a few days, we had multiple side heads developing where we had cut! Pretty cool. It's a beautiful plant. And this one goes into the victory column!
One of our perennial "winners" is "winter purslane. We bought these seeds from "Gourmet Seed" a few years back. Aka "Miner's Lettuce." This has been one of the most successful and effortless plants we've grown. The plant is prolific as hell, and the little leaves are tender and tasty. It just needs a little bit of water and seems to like being left to its own devices. Very low maintenance. No pests at all.
We accidentally let a couple of them go to seed, and before we knew it, the pot next to the original purslane pot was sprouting purslane. It soon took over the entire pot, so we have winter purslane in abundance. Even though the seeds are several years old, it grows really well year after year, and we still have about 50,000 seeds left over!
This year we discovered the joy and ease of growing garlic greens. What is that, you ask? Well, you've seen a clove of garlic, right? Just leave a clove out on the counter and watch it. Eventually, it will sprout a little green shoot out of one end. When that shoot gets to be an inch or two long, plant it in the dirt, sprouting side up, with just a little of the clove showing above the soil line. Give it some water and watch it go to town!
The little green shoots can be snipped off when they get six or eight inches long and they are perfect for salads or soups, or sauteed with other things. Raw, it gives a wonderful garlic-y taste, and they grow rapidly. We put several down in the common herb garden in the front yard for the neighbors, put some on the deck, and even grew some inside, in the kitchen window, so you just snip snip snip. It couldn't be easier! And they taste great!
We successfully grew some carrots this year for the first time, after a couple of failures. We had about 20 "little finger" carrots, some pretty small, but some upwards of six inches long, and they taste more like carrots than any carrots I've ever tasted. Now, we have two batches in one pot: half "little finger" and half "parisienne." Both are Baker Creek heirloom varieties.
The endive, also a Baker Creek seed, is another easy and prolific plant. In this long pot, we put tons of seeds and thinned and thinned until we had about six plants. It's a beautiful plant, and it just keeps coming. It's in the "cut and come" variety: you cut it, and it just keeps coming back. We have given each plant two or three major chopping haircuts, and they all just keep coming back. It's awesome and perfect in salads. (Winter purslane + endive + avocado + Green Goddess salad dressing makes a great side salad).
The chard, some of the swiss variety and some of the Baker Creek single color types, have gone gangbusters all winter. Very colorful and fast-growing. Very nice sauteed in some oil. They cook down a lot, like spinach does, so it takes a good bit to make a side dish, but it just grows right back in no time. Very high in nutrients and very high in the "ease-of-growing" factor.
Kale is in the same boat (not pot) as the chard. It loves the cooler weather and grows and grows, no matter how many times you chop it for a salad or sauteeing. Too bad every plant can't be so maintenance-free.
Speaking of maintenance, it's time to get some tomatoes in the ground! We're late already!
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