Eating Our Way Through the Backyard

It has begun.

On Saturday evening, my daughter ate her way through the backyard. Starting with our black raspberry bush, whose canes are producing like gangbusters this year, she picked the outer few while I waded into the thorny underbrush to get the rest. Dee-lish! After that, we hit the sugar snap peas, swollen from recent rain for the loudest “snap” with each sweet bite. She ventured on to both purple and green basil – a nice garnish, she said. I nibbled some outer leaves of my mache to try, but she took a pass and “traded” me for my share of the sugar snaps. We’ve also picked the equivalent of a $3.99 grocery-store clamshell of mesclun for a few salads so far this year.

It wasn’t exactly a feast that night, but it was fun and it really felt like summer again.

And, like last year, things are just coming up on their own from seeds, compost, buried kitchen scraps or whatever wintered over. So far, we’ve got two types of climbing beans and no fewer than a dozen “secret” tomato plants popping up in the squash beds and elsewhere, which I have thinned to six of the strongest plants. The biggest surprise? Our secret potatoes. I looked out the back window last month during a rainy weekend and kept wondering about this weed, or something, that just kept getting bigger and bigger. When I ventured out on that finally-dry Monday afternoon, I recognized it immediately: it was a potato plant! Did we miss one of the fingerlings or russets during the harvest last year? I laughed so hard.

The funny thing is that when I told my daughter upon picking her up from kindergarten, she bolted out of the car and into the backyard, hunted around a bit then quickly identified it. Yes, we all know what a potato looks like, but how many of you out there know what the actual plant looks like?

That’s my girl. I’m proud of her. And the fun really has begun.

Eco-nomics update:
Romano Bean Seeds $0.80
Kirby Cucumbers $1.99
4-Pack of Tomatoes w/5 plants $1.99
Acorn Squash $1.79
Eggplants – 2 pks @$1.99 $3.98
Sugar Baby Watermelons $1.98
Subtotal: $10.55
Added to previous total $18.31
Total Spent: $28.86

Harvested:
Picked salad greens $3.99
Handfuls of sugar snaps $1.50

In the black by: $23.37