I Love Mother Nature

There's nothing like the sound of snapping a just-picked green bean. They make a succulent yet crisp, definitive snap unlike that you hear with grocery store green beans. I was pleasantly surprised today when, after not going out in the garden since the weekend due to rain one day and cold weather the next, I picked a full pound of green beans just in time for dinner. I was a bit hesitant to look in the bed, fearful that our friendly neighborhood rodent (FNR) had feasted on the whole lot of them. But he hadn't. It was obvious he had been there, but I guess he decided, thankfully, to share them with us.

Then the puppies (my ever-present gardening partners) and I tiptoed over to the cabbage/chinese cabbage/some sort of brassica/garlic bed to see what was going on there and lo and behold if we didn't have 2 heads of cabbage ready to bring in. Actually, since the green beans were just picked, I decided to wait to harvest the cabbage until tomorrow. Somehow, it prolongs the pleasure of the garden. I hope I haven't made the wrong decision and that our FNR sticks with the green beans for at least 1 more day.

Next, we took a gander at the turnip/rutabaga bed and, amazingly, we're really going to have fresh turnips this year. The greens of both the turnips and rutabagas have been growing by noticeable leaps and bounds over the last couple weeks and the bed is literally overflowing with greenery. Today, when I pushed aside some greens to see what was happening in the soil, I'll be darned if I didn't get an eyeful of stunning, 2 to 3-inch, purple spheres with creamy-white caps. Talk about feeding a girl's garden soul.

And the tomatoes. I think most of them survived the 3 weeks of cold temperatures. There's a little bit of browning on some of the leaves, but from a cursory count I'd say there are at least 100 baby tomatoes already hanging from their branches.

All in all, a bang up gardening day. Now back to the kitchen to check the green beans simmering on the stove. I can't wait for dinner.