On Monday Norm and I took vacation days and went up to the Skagit Valley to see the Tulip Festival. There are vast stretches of brown muddy fields, and then you come upon something like this -- a slash of bright flowers which seem to have light coming right out of them. It was a beautiful sunny day. Despite it being a Monday, there were thousands of people out to see the tulips. People troop in from Canada or Seattle, in big groups on tour buses, in clumps of senior citizens or young mothers trailing bunches of little kids, all to walk around and look at flowers. We're always bemoaning the electronic nature of our lives and how everyone is plugged in to laptops and cell phones, but Monday was like a step back in time. People were dashing from one patch of tulips to another, each more beautiful than the last, pointing, talking and laughing together. Many were just standing in awe before a field like this one, saying, "I can't believe how beautiful they are."
We have more patches of mud than vegetables or flowers in our yard right now. Hoo boy -- we have a long ways to go on this garden. Norm says we've had so much going on in the last couple of months, and just face it this is not the year for producing 1,000 pounds of food in our yard. I don't know how much we'll produce, but we're back to planting, and have our first crop! To the left is a picture of part of our Golden Orach bed. Norm planted seeds under a cold frame months ago. Nothing else made it, but we have these greens and some garlic outside the cold frame. I have never grown this heirloom green, or seen it as far as I remember, but was so thrilled to see them last weekend that I immediately picked a bunch and sat right down in the middle of the muddy garden and ate them. They are delicious! Whew! I'd have eaten our first crop of the year no matter what, and am so glad they taste good. I got re-enthused and planted lettuce, peas, more greens, onions, and fava beans.We have seven varieties of tomatoes started inside. Looks like we started them too late, but they are all up now, maybe 1 or 2 inches tall. I'm not sure if they'll be big enough to transplant outside in May. Maybe June 1st? Or do we give in and buy starts from one the many garden sales? Stay tuned.
Keep growing!
