Spring Color

For many people, the stars of the garden are of course the flashy tomatoes, rambling cucumbers, towering okra, and dazzling spectrum of flowers, but you don't have to wait until June for color and taste to come pouring out of your soil. 

Greens are often maligned as boring and bland, perhaps because many people have only ever encountered them out of a can, which is no way to meet any vegetable. The traditional method of cooking a mess of greens is to boil them for hours with pork fat. While sopping up potlickins with homemade cornbread is indeed delightful, greens are very versatile and can be used in a multitude of dishes.

Turnip greens, mustard greens, cabbage, and kale are the most commonly encountered greens in the grocery store. Kale has recently been enjoying celebrity status in foodie culture—with good reason. High in vitamins and minerals, kale and the other greens can be an important part of maintaining good health through healthy eating habits.

Swiss chard, closely related to and resembling beet greens, has also been featured in many cooking shows and blogs. The large glossy leaves are tender with a mild flavor. Use them raw in place of a tortilla in chicken or egg salad wraps. Chard stalks come in a stunning array of florescent colors. I finely chop the tender stalks to sprinkle over my deviled eggs or salad like edible confetti. 

Add a nutritional punch to almost any savory dish by throwing in some chopped greens. From scrambled eggs, quiche, and fritatta, to chicken, egg, and potato salad, soups, and stir fry, there is little for dinner or lunch that can't be improved by adding greens. 

Mild greens can be shredded or julienned and added raw. More pungent greens can be used in small amounts or cooked lightly to mellow their flavor. A big mess of mixed greens cooked for 15 minutes in just a little water and coconut oil, dressed with cider vinegar and a drizzle of honey, seasoned with salt and pepper, is a fine addition to rice and beans for an easy and nutritious simple meal.

Add sensational diversity to your bowl of lettuce and elevate the salad to a work of culinary art. Combine curly, frilly leaves that hold a dressing well with leaves that have a big crunchy stalk. Throw in speckled leaves, purple leaves, dark green spinach and the blanched chartreuse inner leaves of a head of romaine lettuce, and you'll forget that you're even working with “greens”. Top off the salad with slices of a white and pink 'Chioggia' beet and a 'Purple Dragon' carrot, and you'll have a creation worthy of the finest dining establishments.

Cold hardy and easy to grow, greens will heartily welcome spring to your garden and can even be grown in pots on a sunny porch. The kale and arugula I planted last week germinated in less than 24 hours! Sprinkle seeds over soil you've prepare for a seed bed and cover lightly with soil. We use lightweight row cover directly on the soil to speed germination. The plants will push up the row cover as they grow, and it will afford some protection from pests.

About the time the summer bugs start having their heyday with your greens, the cucumbers, squash, and tomatoes will be gearing up. Chard and kale left in the ground through the summer will rebound when fall's cool-off begins, so you can get two harvest seasons from one planting.

Wild Garden Seed is a small seed company that improves and develops varieties for direct-to-consumer growers, which includes home gardens. Their lettuce varieties 'Joker' and 'Freedom Mix' are the most stunning lettuces I have encountered. From 'Purple Peacock Sprouting Broccoli' to 'Scarlet Ohno' turnip, the color and taste of their varieties are superior to anything you've ever bought from the grocery store. A few of their varieties are offered through FedCo Seed Company, as well.

The world of greens is vastly more expansive than the shelves of Food Lion or Wal-Mart would lead you to believe. Grown without toxic sprays, harvested fresh, and prepared lovingly, these leaves can support good health while providing beauty to be appreciated around the table with family and friends.

Cusp of Spring

These teases of warm weather have gardeners and bees alike yearning for spring. It's a good time to reflect on the importance of the present moment. In a few weeks, we'll all be busy bees with too much to do to waste time wanting for what is not. Anyway, the daffodils, still hiding their cheerful yellow faces, are letting us know in no uncertain terms that spring will be later than it was last year.

This is actually a Snowberry Clearwing Moth

While the bees brave this cool weather to forage on blushing red maple buds and tiny purple henbit flowers, gardeners and farmers are powerless against the urge to awaken tender plants from their slumber, nestled inside lifeless-looking seeds. 

Some need soaking, some require scoring; others can just be scattered on the soil surface and lightly misted. Some will burst through the testa (seed coat) after only a day, whereas others will dally for weeks—which seems endless.

damping off from 'State by State Gardening'

Once the tiny plants start their journey toward the sun, they need tender, loving care. In a greenhouse or on your window sill, they must have bright light or they will be become lanky and weak, to ultimately flop over and shrivel. But don't let them get too warm or you risk the soil getting too hot and scorching their tender roots. The growing medium must retain adequate moisture, but don't over-water, which can cause damping-off, lanky growth, and mildew. 

Seedlings from seeds sown directly in the garden must fend for themselves from the beginning. Some lightweight row cover can help them along, but if you cover with plastic, be sure to remove it on sunny days—even cold sunny days—otherwise the plants will bake. 

Carrots, beets, and other hardy Viridiplantae babies seem to appreciate row cover directly on the soil after sowing. The thin air space between the soil surface and row cover creates a high-humidity buffer that is a little warmer than the air temperature, preventing soil crusting and encouraging strong germination. The plants will push the row cover up as they grow, and the row cover can provide protection from pests looking for a spring feast.

Intrepid growers already have some seed potatoes and onion sets out. Some just couldn't resist seeding a round of root crops and hardy greens, like arugula, lettuce, and kale. Many are chomping at the bit to start tomatoes. I'm holding off for another week or so. I definitely heard thunder in February, which, I've been told, means frost in May. I don't want to end up with giant, leggy tomato plants by the end of April, a situation which contributed to a lack-luster tomato harvest on our farm last year.

If you haven't turned your soil yet, or even bought your seeds, fret not. You have ample time.

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange is an independent seed company offering many unique varieties specifically suited to growing in the humid heat of Southern summers. 'Louisiana Purple Pod' pole beans are a favorite of mine—productive whether it's hot and dry or comparatively cool and wet, always a stunning purple with great crunch and sweet taste. This variety is also open-pollinated, so it's easy to save your own seeds. Just let some pods dry on the vine, harvest, clean, and store in a cool, dark, dry place.

FedCo is another fantastic source for GM-free seed. With low prices and a staggering inventory, they offer something for everyone. As a cooperative, they offer seeds from many independent producers, constantly working to improve their varieties and to create new varieties specifically for the home garden and direct-to-consumer growers. A huge proportion of our yearly seed order comes from FedCo.

For my tomato-obsessed compatriots, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds Company has no comparison. With literally hundreds of open-pollinated and heirloom tomato varieties of every color, shape, and taste to peruse, you'll have a hard time putting down their eye-popping catalog. They also offer a large selection of unique vegetables, collected from around the world. 

The cusp of spring is a time tinged with reflection, yearning, grand optimism, and colorful seed catalogs. Surely, this will be a year with just enough, but not too much rain, no vine borers or imported cabbage worms, immaculate weedless rows, and no trace of early blight.