Greens of Every Shade

The scene at our house; tomatoes, peppers and eggplants that are coming in at night and going out by day to harden off.  Hope to plant the maters this week and the pepps and eggies next week when things are even more settled weatherwise.  Packs of seeds for squash and cucumbers await me sowing a few of those into flats so I can plant them out in about 3 or 4 weeks hopefully. 

Had my first day off in about 2 weeks yesterday and enjoyed the beautiful weather, planted a few perennials I couldn't resist bringing home from the nursery and enjoyed meals including winter veggies that we are eating as fast as we can because the spring crops are starting to come in. Finally polished off the last of the fall spinach last night with loads of garlic and some beet greens mixed in and a side of sweet potatoes.  Working our way through the fall cabbage, chard, kale, collards, lettuce...  Need to eat LOTS of greens, but they are good for us.  Asparagus every other day and lately with shitakes, which we have deemed one of the all time best food combos we know.  Tonight we had them grilled. yummm.

Still no real room to breath, packing record numbers of packages at the Forest, everyone everywhere is planting and gardening just now, sending lots of plants to the midwest as its now finally warm enough for us to ship there, in February and March we were shipping to points south.  We're glad the open house is over and we'll be glad to see the end of May and the shipping slow down.  May will also bring the end to the veggie planting mania that is April, I'll breath a big sigh of relief once all the summer crops are in the ground.

I'm also helping to install a "Natural Learning Environment" onto the playground of a childcare center in Hillsborough this weekend.  It should be great once its done, but a lot of work to get it ready.  I am glad to be a part of this effort to bring nature to children that spend long days in the confines of childcare centers. The typical playground  is made up of play equipment surrounded by a flat and barren area covered with mulch. We hope to transform this one into a green space with lots of textures, smells, shapes, trees to climb, filled with natural objects to create with and inspire free play and exploration. 

Once that's done maybe I can lay on down for awhile as my papa used to say. I'm eager for an early morning bird walk and the exciting migrating warblers should start showing up this weekend.