Ode To Arugala

It is unseasonably warm where I live now, so much so that everything has gone into Spring mode very early.  I am a big proponent of the planet since I live here and I believe that global warming is real and here to stay.  Today, though, well and yesterday too, I decided if you can't beat 'em then join 'em.  So, I (who still have winter clothes on my laundry room floor to wash) jumped with two feet into Spring or rather my garden.  While I know that we may return to cold weather, I love Spring gardening and hate to get seeds in any later than possible.

Yesterday, with two dogs, a toddler, claw style hand tiller, a shovel, and the odds and ends seeds purchased in previous seasons...to be honest I think I just lost track of this sentence.  Let's just suffice it to say, I started gardening yesterday...March 12th....March 12th....(I am still in disbelief).  Yes it is Spring warm, yes we are wearing Spring clothes, but most importantly my chives are growing, the soil surface is warm but underneath it is cool and damp.  My garden is speaking loudly to me that it is Spring even though the calendar is laughing at the garden.  So, I tilled and I planted and I tilled a little more so I could plant a little more and yes I went overboard.  I planted loose salad greens, head lettuce, spinach, arugula, peas, beets, radishes, chard, regular kale, and Chinese kale.  We have also been enjoying fresh green lettuce salads full of arugula, which I really love. To explain why I have greens in full growth goes all the way back to last Fall.  After a long term pattern of procrastinating a Fall garden, last year it really happened.  Honestly, it was not due to finding a cure to my laziness, but due to anger that my garden that was having its best year sadly met the hottest driest Summer I have seen.  I was so frustrated that I put in a Fall garden.  I am a great Spring gardener and I now realize that Fall gardening is basically the same except that I water more at the beginning and less at the end.  With an unseasonably mild Winter (I believe I mentioned that above), nothing froze.  So, the arugula I planted last Fall is now bolting.  That's the happy part of the story. The sad part, nothing froze, so the weeds lived on.  Underneath my gardens top soil is an extensive mesh of weed roots.  Yep, folks global warming is real and yep we need a good hard freeze every Winter to kill things that we find annoying, such as weeds and mosquitoes. 


The Compromise: Global Warming...need I say more.

The Sweet Reward:  Arugula in all forms right now, i.e. salad, bolting in my garden, and seedlings ready to emerge...a worthy reward for the above price right....okay not really...sorry to end on the sad note.

On a happier note:  Bake your own pizza and as soon as you pull it out of a very hot oven (at least 450 is my recommendation), toss fresh arugula on top so it wilts.  so yummy, especially if you sub out the mozzarella for goat cheese.....mmmmm.....