Eliot & Barbara's Garden Journal

November 25 :: Home grown Thanksgiving salad. Amazing how much difference a little passive protection can make. Lift up the inner covers and the greenhouse crops look as fresh and vigorous as they did in June. Who's afraid of the cold?

December 18 :: Awesome salad: claytonia, arugula selvatica, minutina, frisée, Buttercrunch lettuce, Napoli carrots. If there are nicer, better quality, or tastier ingredients than these available anywhere in Maine on this cold rainy day I would have to see it to believe it.

December 22, 12 noon :: I just harvested our contribution for a pot-luck dinner with friends and neighbors. It was zero degrees F last night. -20F wind chill outside right now. Spinach, mache, claytonia, radicchio, endive, sorrel. Yum!

December 25 :: A beautiful sunny Christmas morning. Outdoor temperature in the 20’s, greenhouse 54F, inner layers 70F. Yes, we have Provence. Soil looked dry so I watered. On December 25 yet! The wonders of protected cultivation. Locally grown winter salads should easily become normal practice at least up till Christmas because it is in no way difficult to achieve. Spinach, mache, lettuce claytonia, frisée, minutina, parsley, and da Taglio chicory all look spectacular and taste equally so. Our Christmas salad includes all of the above. PS. I picked a bouquet of yellow pansys from a few plants at one end of the mache bed.

December 31 :: Return to paradise dinner. The winter garden is bounteous as usual. After a 10 day absence all is well and we pick a marvelous fresh salad of mache, claytonia, and frisée served with a dressing of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and a little tarragon mustard.

January 2, 4PM :: Low last night, -4F. Present temperature 12F outdoors (-10F wind-chill), 32F in greenhouse and 44F under inner cover. Harvested for supper -- leeks, arugula, tatsoi, turnip greens, radicchio, kale, and sorrel.

January 16 :: We have had steady single digit temperatures since Christmas. Not much sun most of the time. still the system continues producing. Soil frozen 1” deep in edge bed of mache and claytonia but plants and leaves are fresh, beautiful, and ready to harvest. The ‘Walla-Walla Sweet’ green onions can be harvested frozen and still look beautiful when they thaw. Today’s salad - mache, claytonia, frisée, radicchio, parsley, leaf celery, green onions.

February, 19 :: Sub-zero salad. Whoops! I forgot to pull the inner layers back over the crops last evening and the outdoor temperature went below 0F. No problem for today's salad, however. Spinach, mache, claytonia, and the first thinnings of the new arugula (1/6) planting.

March 20 :: First day of spring pasta. Dandelion greens (at their early spring best in the greenhouse) sauteed with oil and garlic to just wilt them, then simmered in cream. Served over pasta with sprinkles of bacon and Parmegiano-Regiano.

March 27 :: A ‘no-pasta’ lasagna based around Swiss Chard leaves and potato slices. This dish took advantage of the fact that the over-wintered chard, sorrel, scallions, and parsley are all regrowing extra heartily with the warmer temperatures and lengthening days.