My Leafy Friends

My leafy friends are back!! Lamb's Quarters at the leash-free dog park are big as small trees (yes, I wash them really, really well). The leaves are four inches long and they stand as tall as me.

Thanks to Victoria Boutenko and her inspiring book, Green for Life, I'm gobbling them up raw in green smoothies. Amazingly, those quarter inch stems turn into froth along with the chickweed, spinach, dandelion leaves, blueberries, plums and apples I put in with them. If the dandelion tang threatens to overwhelm my palette, I just throw in a little stevia and lemon juice. Voila! Perfection.

Now I finally understand why the raw food people get so excited. Eating raw is not a viable lifestyle for me because me teeth are starting to leave me. But when the blender does the work, I'm all over it. Instead of having to count calories, or change my routine, I just add a morning blender drink and
1. I don't have to cook anything
2. I stop craving sugar, coffee and chocolate. (I still eat it. I just don't crave it.)
3. I feel jet propelled as though it was caffeinated
4. Strangely enough, the extra weight I've carried for years is sliding off me since I replaced store bought spinach with the wild greens in the smoothie.
Yep, those wild greens are my buddies and look, four years later, I still can't stop talking about them. Look at earlier posts for photos to ID these amazing plants for yourself. I bet you have them all over your yard. They like foundation walls, telephone poles, fences and, of course, snuggled up to your beets, lettuce, carrots and tomatoes in the garden.

I planted a bed of Jerusalem artichokes this year in rotted horse doo-doo and guess what I got? Wraparound pigweed! Another excellent blender buddy! I don't know why I waste my money on seed.

If you think about it and really notice the difference, cultivated veggies are a distant second in taste and nutritional power to lamb's quarters, chickweed, pigweed, plantain, purslane, burdock leaf stems, and a host of others too good to believe. I get more produce out of my alley, backyard and the city parks than my garden right now!

This blog started five years ago when the collards behind my former house kept reseeding and growing. Six generations of collards with no-gardener-in-sight were producing bigger and better plants than when gardener assisted. Note to self: they don't need us.

Even when I was sneaking back there (note winter alley grazing outfit) and pulling them out of the snow , all beat up, moth eaten, and winter fried, they were soft and sweet as brand new when steamed.

What I see now is that the most powerful plants announce their nutritional vigor by the way they grow.
1. By being inventive & adaptable, i.e. growing in sidewalk cracks, out of the sides of compost piles, under decks, on roofs, up trees!!

2. By growing to outlandish sizes, those showoffs.

3. By growing really fast, getting way ahead of conventional, garden-bred leafy greens.

In the plant world, they're clearly athletes. Don't they just scream out, "Have I Got a Surprise for You!!"

Do you think maybe they're trying a little too hard to get our attention?
As if they know what's better for us than we do?!
excellent burdock photo by Andrew Williams/CritterZone.com

Spring is Here Gardening Fiends

This is indeed the first day of Spring. And it follows the largest full moon in decades. That should mean something, though the damp and cold are here today, too.

I celebrated the first spring day by ordering heirloom seed varieties from Azure Standard: All of these varieties, packaged by Heirlooms Evermore, have been around since the 1800's. How reassuring.

The Marvel of 4 Seasons Lettuce was the most prolific (photo above, front row), romaine type lettuce. It was the most delicious, juicy, and long standing lettuce I've ever planted. The Burbank tomatoes did really well too. Under the pink ribbons in the bed with marigolds, carrots and a zucchini. The green next to the bed is chickweed and mallow. In the foreground an irrepressible Manitoba Maple.

So I am sold on heirloom varieties for Montana. Last year was a rough summer on gardens-so people told me. My raised bed kitchen garden raised a bumper crop. My plants get a great start and good care for about six weeks. After that, it is fend for yourself time. In the next week or so I hope to start a hot frame bed to start plants I would normally start indoors. More on that next time.

I recently discovered I have some common food intolerance–dairy, gluten, sugar and yeast. Cutting out most of what I like has escalated my commitment to raw, fresh, local and seasonable edibles. Also, my commitment to exploring websites with cool recipes like living without. Can't wait for my chickweed which should be showing up soon in the backyard. YES, this early we can already start harvesting nutritious greens. You can find them on the south facing walls, along brick or cinderblock embankments, or in protected patios. The race is on.

I like remembering that agriculture started with alley grazing, before there were even alleys!! Women, children and elders with baskets, scouring the countryside. Isn't is reassuring to know that we're still doing it all these centuries later. Only now, men are allowed to do it too, unlike several centuries ago when it might have been frowned on as gender inappropriate. I remember reading that men and women weren't even allowed to use the same tools for the same job back then. Scythes and shovels...imagine

Celestial Seasonings started with grazing, too. Those two hippie guys tromping over hill and dale filling up their backpacks with wild herbs and berries back in the '70's. Their product line was so superior to anything else on the shelves, they eventually grew their little storefront into a multimillion dollar operation. Even after Nestle bought them out, it's still great tea! Plus I think they invented the ethics of businesses giving back to the communities in which they do business. Or maybe that was Ben & Jerry.

Okay, that was a signature digression. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Happy Grazing!!

Alley Grazing on Steroids

Due to the incomprehensible amount of rain this year, edible (and inedible) weeds are bigger and lusher than they have ever, ever been. Kerr Dam is pretty photogenic as usual and rafters are having a ball on the Flathead River.

Two days ago, my day job and alley grazing came together at my friend Jen's house, as I pick-axed giant burdock roots out of the ground. We are talking roots that are over 3 feet long. Of course I only got portions of those behemoths. I plan to fix them for dinner tomorrow. Will let you know the recipes. They taste a bit like artichokes. I spent an hour, harvested a dozen roots and I was spent. You win burdocks!!

Lamb's Quarters, Knapweed and Mullein are becoming trees along the canal where we walk our dogs. It is staggering to see our arid Montana valley becoming a rain forest of edibility, an explosion of Eurasian immigrant plantvlife. Oh yeah, you are supposed to use the word 'invasive' when describing these species from across the sea, which, in case you hadn't noticed includes all plants called weeds -dandelions, pigweed, stellaria, mallow, grasses, lilies, irises, skunk cabbage, ad infinitum. Perhaps indigenous peoples of all continents would include our own Eurasian ancestors in the invasive species list. After all, these plants are just following our lead. Can anyone spell karma? I digress...

In my own garden, the peas are trying to set a new record. Pods just now appearing. Weeds and peas this year is taller than I am. What fun.

Has She Gone Too Far?

Last week, Alley Grazer was seen on Monastery Beach near Carmel stuffing seaweed into black garbage bags. When questioned, she admitted it was for her sister-in-law, Catherine's compost pile. Catherine was ecstatic with the beach grazing which will fill up her composter, the giant rolling barrel named Konan. Probably a first for that Dollar Rent a Car to have a trunk full of sea vegetables. A good time was had by all.

So this proves that the sky is the limit with respect to grazing. The fantastic abundance of mother nature, whether for palate, for composting, basket making, (or in the case of my oldest friend whose wedding I was attending there), pine boughs for the wedding display.

On the property where the couple lived and wedding was to take place, there was a huge stump where Christie placed these pine boughs we loaded into the rental car. Then the morning of the wedding, she plucked scarlet geranium blossoms which were growing in wild profusion nearby and placed them on the boughs. Can you just see it? A spectacular 3 foot horizontal wreath formed a vivid backdrop for the minister and the betrothed couple.

I was only there a week, but the 'grazing' opportunities were endless. In addition to the seaweed gathering, I transplanted some wild daisies from the bottom of Bill and Catherine's driveway up to the flower bed; also, grazing on miners lettuce and chickweed, and the wedding preparations. Today while I was getting my tires changed at Les Schwab, I walked up to the water tank with my dog and discovered three wild flowers I had never seen before. This took me to library grazing where I found a couple wildflower books to help me identify them.

Finding surprises right in the neighborhood like that is so exciting. We walk by things everyday without noticing: flowers, wild edibles, tiny creatures, and even people who would be good to know! In my immediate neighborhood and all over town, I find walnut shells. There is one walnut tree across the road from me, but no others. Yet I find shells all over a 6-10 block area. It's starting to feel like a cosmic joke, especially since there are no squirrels in this part of town. At my feet, over by the side of the road, even downtown, I see them, just one or two at a time. Sometimes just a half shell or a rotted fragment. Who are the clandestine distributors of these hulls and shells?? Or is it a totem, some sign from the gods?

Being a compulsive alley grazer, I also notice cast off appliances, lumber, barrels, buckets, cinder blocks, mechanical parts, bed frames, vehicles, lawnmowers, fencing, firewood, landscaping timbers...well, I could go on. A virtual infinity of discarded items in the alleys of my town.

In another week, it will be time to harvest the lambs quarters, one of my favorites. Sometimes, they are coming up in and around people's rusting car parts or lawn furniture. Fortunately, I have a wonderful soap that is good for making sure there is no extra stuff on the wild edibles. But it is important not to harvest anywhere spray is suspected. I have noticed that I can sometimes tell by the way plants grow-uncharacteristic shape or size makes me suspicious. Also, homeowners tend to spray certain margins. So I watch out for that.

The beauty of grazing (watch horses, goats, cows and sheep for the ambient frame of mind), is the directionless, goal-free meandering, like the breeze, like the clouds, like the sweeping arc of my eyes taking it all in. That moment of recognition when a flower appears like a familiar friend. Oh, there you are. Or the artistry of green vines scaling a washer tub, the spray of grass clippings along a weathered board, maple flowers blanketing the pavement like a coat of neon paint, lavender blossoms ganged up on stems, about to explode, multicolored tulip buds...what an amazing show. Don't miss it. Alleys are the best part of any town, like people when they kick their shoes off, take off the tie and power suit, lean back in the recliner and become themselves again. Laid back...weedy and wonderful.

Oh those cottonwoods and more

It is that time of year again. The birds are crowding the feeder, daffodils almost done, tulips on the way. And those cottonwoods are starting the mega dump of debris onto the cars, roadways and animals. The catkins are piling up in my neighborhood. I think it is hilarious for something to be so abundant. I covered that in this post a few years ago.

Chickweed/dandelion salad fixings, my 'grazing of choice' are the first delights of the season to add to my

buckwheat sprouts (look left). My friend Barbara introduced me to quinoa sprouts yesterday. Get your glasses on to see those babies. But oh wow what a taste. Nutty, great texture. Eaten raw they are twice as good as cooked.

When I was in California I found miner's lettuce in Carmel Valley and bay leaves by the Big Sur River (above). The bay leaves came home in my suitcase.

Other California tripping...We traveled to Santa Barbara along the coast, stopping in Gordo at what was reputed to be an espresso bar. Not. Hippie, biker dude with a seriously flawed idea of a latte. Of course what would you expect from a hell's angel wannabe on a chopped moped. Al was the unfortunate victim. But we laughed about it for days.

Al with a pocket full of peanuts had no idea how popular he as just about to become with the locals. This bunch was lying in wait for him.

Near Pismo Beach the most classic diner I have ever seen housed was housed in a couple railway cars. Divine eye candy! For those of us who love diners as much as we love trains, this was a find! Good burgers too.

Days of walking beaches puts that tidal rythm right in to your bones. No wonder there are people who must live by the sea, no matter what. Other beach walkers had tips on where to find the best sand dollars and how to clean them up at home. A couple walking the pier in Pismo Beach swapped stories with us. We could hear the waves from our room and watch the volleyball and amazingly school soccor practice from our window.

another exotic alley...we look like we are part of the painting

alley grazing on the coast

Two weeks of tripping around the California coast, sampling the different coastal communities has been wonderful. I had never been a tourist in my own home town before. We even kidnapped my brother today and took him to Fisherman's Wharf for stroll around with the tourists and lunch over the water. 

From Monterey to Santa Barbara on Highway 1, we saw Hearst Castle, elephant seals, Solvang, Big Sur; drove thru rock slides and torrential rains, and a huge casino on the Chumash (pronounced Ca-Hu-Ma)Reservation.

 

How Come Everyone I Know is Sick When We Have Super Powers?

Have you noticed it takes less effort to fall sick than it used to? Virtually everyone I know is sick right now: some with the Big C, some with the aftermath of chemo, some with chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, lupus, Lou Gehrig's, herpes, candida, angina, liver disease, diverticulitis, colitis, kidney failure. How about diabetes? Have you ever known so many people with diabetes?

My interest in the human body began with a fear of illness, which began as a child with a three week hospital stint, flat in bed with spinal meningitis. . It terrorized me into good health. So I started researching what made my body work better in my early 20's, using myself as a lab rat. When I could dial vitality up and down, depending on how willing I was to live right, I started wondering how far we could go with this.

What about the Super Powers? It seems, at times that we have them. Like when people:
1. Leap off tall buildings and survive
2. Lift automobiles off trapped children.
3. Use only air for sustenance-no food, no water.
4. Get buried alive and live through it
5. Get electrocuted and survive
6. Stroll on a 15-20 foot bed of red hot coals and don't burn up

Now I don't know about you, but if only one person ever did this, it becomes, by definition, humanly possible. A human did it, ergo, the human body has this capacity. By the way, I walked on glowing coals years ago, and my feet didn't burn. They looked brand new, like baby feet. All the callouses, nasty cracks , bunions and bulges...gone. Who knew?

So what are the outside parameters of the body's capabilities? Is this a power that can be summoned? Is it a technology to be learned? Is it a talent like music or art? Or is it faith in a Divine Being? Or is it something we all have?

This is the intro to my new blog, Sparkle www.juliewenner.blogspot.com

See you over there!

Accordion Angst

Well, a friend pointed out that it has been a really long time since I blogged. Three months ago seems like a lifetime. In the past 3 months,
1. my best friend finished the edits on her book, BITING BACK: A NO-NONSENSE (NO GARLIC) GUIDE TO FACING THE PERSONAL VAMPIRES IN YOUR LIFE
2. my friend Wendy produced two of her new plays to rave reviews
3. I enrolled in a grief support group
4. Started working on my book again-draft 3
5. I bought a raw food recipe book.
6. my younger brother, Henry, died

my brother died. That doesn't seem possible. That can't be right. I'm not anywhere near acceptance on this. A perfectly good brother I have known for for 55 and a half years, was maybe a little worn out...well, completely worn out, the warranty was up on those parts. Spirit still strong, body trashed. We used to joke about 'well, if I'd known I'd live this long, I would have taken better care of it.' Yeah, bro...here's to taking care of it.

So I'm doing it for him, taking care of this old bod in the hopes that my parts will last, all buffed up with yoga, walking, herbal cleansing, good nourishing thoughts, and let's not forget, music.

What it must have felt like for him to know 'the big one' was stalking him. It could have been either a heart attack or a stroke. Cardiologists couldn't figure out how he was still walking around. I'm sure he worried about harm to others, like if he was driving when it happened. I didn't get to talk to him about it. I didn't want to believe it was imminent.


Anyway, speaking of accordions. Brother Bill's joke: a guy wanted to get rid of his accordion so he took his car down to a bad neighborhood with the accordion in the back seat, left it unlocked, and when he came back the next morning, there were two accordions in the back seat. Ha ha

Bill's good friend Sam gave me his father's accordion, An Anderson System Dallape, purchased when his Dad was a kid. The box says 1936 on it. It is smaller than a lady's medium, made in Italy. No plastic anywhere. The following photos just show how much fun you can have without even playing it. I am in accordion kindergarten presently, but I love the sound which is somewhere between an organ, a calliope, and a train's moaning call.

See what I mean? This looks like the sound coming out of the accordion. Whoa.



Okay, Back to my brother...clearly part of getting over such a huge loss is time, but maybe also some effort. So Bill sent me half of Henry's ashes and the first installment entered the Flathead River last week by Buffalo Bridge.

Some of Henry's best moments were spent in, on and around water: kayaking Hawaii's coastline and running wild rivers in California, Oregon and Idaho. Kealakekua Bay on the Big Island can't possibly be the same without his kayaks sliding into the bay, helping tourists paddle over to the Captain Cook Monument, dodging dolphins, snorkeling crystal waters, and rocking on the tidal swell. Also bothering Fern Pule, at the heaiau which has been caretaken for centuries by the same families.

Henry's first wild river ride had to be the Carmel River. A memorable and hair raising rafting trip had twelve year old Henry and his friend Michael Bull in a rubber duck careening toward the sea, virtually airborn from the roiling swell. The frightened parents were racing to bridges in the car, screeching to a halt just in time to see this yellow missile flying under the bridge carrying their darlings alongside cartwheeling trees, dead animals and tidal waves of white water. It became part of family lore, how those two boys didn't die in the massive water spout produced by the collision between the flood level Carmel River and the Pacific Ocean at Monastery Beach. He was hooked after that.

So our plan is to sink Henry bones in all the rivers we can think of. Bill and I already visited the Carmel River in December with a deposit. Then when I came back to Montana, Bill took off for Yosemite and in all the wild rivers Hen used to dip into, buck through rapids, and have near death experiences, Bill placed those ashes. Henry taught me so much over the years about how you rise out of the ashes of your own life again and again. He did it with some style and grace, honesty and humor. It was a life.

Fall Grazing

This year, the plum trees along my alley started firing their missiles early. Last year, I remember plucking plums out of the snow some mornings. But this year each morning, I get to fill my basket in my T shirt. When I get up, I tippy toe out my back gate, past my friend BJ's RoadTrek, which is her home on wheels, soon to be heading south, past the 2 immense, leaping dogs across the alley (see below), , past the abandoned camper with the cat on top, to my destination-the 3 heavy laden plum trees.

For some reason, each year, the fruit on the trees is far from ripe until it comes tumbling down into the grass, gravel or cement. When I look up at the branches, I see bushels of fruit still airborn, so I will be busy for awhile when they decide to come down. The hint of purple in the grass reminds me of Easter egg hunts. They are even the same shape. I don't know until I pick it up whether it will be a perfect ovoid or a slimy gob of fruit goo, half gutted by hornets or ants. I bring a separate bucket to pick up the goo so that my finger tips don't keep re-visiting the same bummers. They go in a special compost pile. Those pits will make great soil, but it will take time and llama manure, I suspect.

Under one of the plum trees, I noticed a fresh crop of stellaria, my 2nd favorite salad green after arugula. It looks just like it does in the spring, little blossoms sparkling out of the grass, all ready for picking. I wonder if chickweed pesto would be a wonderful taste treat? Chickweed and mint might create a zingy sauce for rice or pasta. Inventing new foods from grazed ingredients is like a riotous collaboration with Ma Nature in the kitchen. It makes me giddy just thinking about it.

A brand new breakfast cereal I think I invented: Get out your iron fry pan and roast brown rice that has already been sprouted and dried (soaked in water for a day, then laid out on a tray); then grind to a powder in an electric coffee grinder (I keep one for only seeds, spices and nuts). Add 2-3 Tablespoons of the rice powder with 1 cup water, simmer for about 15 minutes (be sure to keep stirring and adding water), and voila, cream of rice on steroids. With some plums, almond butter and maple syrup thrown in, it was amazingly filling. that has to be the most economical breakfast in the history of the world (or not).

I am thinking about Plum Chutney. This is my haul every morning, until the frost and then watch out; it will be snowing plums. Other grazing earlier this year took Al and I to a friend's cherry orchard where we picked 15 gallons of cherries. A plum, peach, cherry cobbler is certainly in my future. Speaking of which, the blackberry peach cobbler at East Shore Smoke House is not to be missed. they have a unique yellow bisquit that perfectly complements the fruit. Also, their Cherry Chocolate Bread Pudding with Vanilla Sauce is exquisite.

I can't believe I was fasting just a few weeks ago. Imagine going 8 days with no solid food and not being hungry. That story will star in a future blog in October. But for now I am eating with gusto and enjoying every wildcrafted bite. Remember find something insanely fresh for your mouth every day!

It is just the best feeling to know that morsel

you are chewing came directly from the earth or from God or angels or All That Is; whatever you want to call it, and it is traveling like a rocket into that other piece of earth/God/Angels/ATI which is You! Something so neat & tidy about that. Freshness and wholeness are the essence of that transformation. I am biting into an item that is whole unto itself. Nothing quite like that. Produce is really the only thing that is still in its original format. If all the non-whole products were vacuumed out of the grocery store, there would be only one aisle. Guess which one?

When our bodies were being perfected about 10,000 years ago, that was the only kind of nutrition around, things whole in themselves. Now almost everything we eat has been taken apart and put together, assembled from parts. I suspect that is confusing, if not debilitating for the average physiology. Everything from french fries to pudding to bread is a conglomerate of substances that would never come together without human aid. Maybe a simple health regimen would be to eat some things that are whole everyday. That's where grazing comes in.

Freshness and wholeness is a given with alley forage. Especially when you yank it right out of the ground or off the tree (giving thanks of course). Elapsed time from harvest to table = 15 seconds instead of 4-10 days. It's harder to feel the resonant spirit in a box of cake mix that has been parked God knows where for half a year.

When does that mouthful stop being chickweed or plums or blackberry cobbler and start to be me, I wonder? In my mouth or stomach or later? Or is it always me..and you and earth and sky? These are the things a girl gets to ponder when she doesn't have a day job. More about that next time.
As Julia Child always says,
BON APPETIT!!

Let The Alley Grazing Begin

As those of you who read my blog know, alley grazing refers to both kinds- eyes on the ground and head in the clouds. Wandering the byways and back alleys of my mind is more productive with a specific earthbound goal directly ahead. Just ask any fisherman (woman), huckleberry or asparagus stalker, or mountain rambler. As each of you also browse the rich forage of your thoughts, either occasionally or constantly, so I find myself drawn to the harvest of thoughts and weeds when spring erupts. And it is, finally, erupting.

This year, a quick trip to California to pick up my Mom's furniture made me miss my favorite seasonal event, the scent of cottonwood. By the time I got back, my dog was covered with the sticky little bud scales, and the scent had been carried far away on prevailing winds.Here in the Mission Valley, we have had a long, teaser of a spring with the promise of sun, then with a few warm, languid days followed by snowy nights and visa versa. The warm and cold have been so seamlessly sandwiched together that everyone has been going loco with the ambivalence of it. Ah, not to mention the confused tomatoes , pussy willows and cherry trees.

For the month of April and most of May, I believe it snowed on the mountains everyday. That has to be some kind of record. I was on my knees rummaging in my under-the-bed summer/winter storage box daily like a nervous squirrel checking the cache. First, grabbing summer stuff and replacing it with winter togs; then grabbing the jackets again and putting away the shorts, with each new blast of cold.

Now, Memorial Day is upon us, the official opening of summer, and it is a tad frosty, but when the clouds part, it gets steamy and warm. The mountains produce the most interesting weather, if not the best for gardening.

Speaking of gardening, in a rare burst of enthusiasm, and with Al's help, I now have a raised bed garden, bristling with seedlings-lettuce, arugula, cilantro, some broccoli and basil plants and a few tomato seedlings. In the foreground are bunching onions and a 'lawn' of tiny collard volunteers.

I am currently reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, published in 1974 by Robert Persig, a cultural classic and metaphorical masterpiece of its time that sold 4 million copies.

He shows the error at the very heart of western thinking that creates most of the confusion and misunderstanding of our times. It is brilliant and sometimes difficult to follow as the author shows the errors in thinking through the narrator, a former philosophy professor who we understand goes mad tracking down an idea to some horrid dead end, has electroshock treatment and emerges as the current narrator. This narrator writes technical manuals and is attempting to trace the journey to madness of his former personality (without following him into the abyss), while taking a motorcycle trip with his son. Wow. That book covers a lot of ground both vertically and horizontally; like a non-fiction inquiry wrapped in a fiction story wrapped in an enigma? See for yourself. But does it ever start you browsing through your ideas and assumptions.

As for the earthbound alleys, chickweed is blossoming and spreading; lamb's quarters is up about 6 inches. Just the right size for picking. And, oh those collards! Once again, I have to rhapsodize about them.

Two years ago, when I threw some collard seeds into the soil here, they grew into trees with two foot seed stalks. Then those trees had babies the following season and I saved seeds from them in my garage and thrashed/winnowed them a month ago.

In the magnified photo below, they look like Montana river rocks. These seeds in my jar had siblings that fell on the ground and are now 4-5 inch seedlings. Within a few months, their gigantic leaves will be blanched, frozen, and put away for winter nutrition. Third generation. The beauty of non-hybridized seed, is the exact genetic vigor year after year. Bugs don't eat them and they withstand drought and flood. Collards, like chickweed, lambs quarters, dandelions and burdock (root & stems), contain stellar vitamin/content and are very tasty. I just love how that works. This year when I finally got around to making raised beds, I didn't have to buy anything but the seeds. Been avoiding it as too much work, but it wasn't. With scavenged wood, digging the paths, and shaping stakes to hold up the side boards, and screwing everything together, I was done. Oh yeah, and a great helper. Let's not forget that. A special place in heaven for garden helpers. Then Glacier Gold compost folded into the soil completed the job.

It wouldn't win a beauty prize, but I think we'll get some good eating this summer. I thought the long pea bed (foreground, 2nd photo from the top) was a stroke of genius. Sometimes I think we just channel the plants wishes, because the whole template just stamped itself on my brain and I started building. The vigorous little plants to the right are arrugula. I plant thick, then start thinning for salads. Looks like good picking right now, only two weeks after planting!