Yum!

First vegetables of the "cool season"*. To date, the mesclun has been a dud. I reseeded it because the first batch didn't germinate. Maybe the soil is low on N, but the current mesclun bed produced two crops of green beans this summer, and I left the roots with their nitrogen-nodules when I cleaned out the beanstalks, so I expected better results. I've decided to be patient.

The broccoli is growing very very sloooowwwly. I've decided to be patient with broccoli, too.

The peas look great and have their first flowers!

The spinach got thinned out by cutworms, but the survivors look wonderful. And tonight, for dinner, the first of the winter veggies: spinach! Yummy!


Recalling the fruits of the warm season for a moment: pumpkins in December are a decorative no-no.

Pumpkins mean Halloween and Thanksgiving. The day after Thanksgiving they become vegetable non grata**. However there were gorgeous white pumpkins, unsold for Thanksgiving, on clearance at the grocery store for just a dollar each. Too beautiful (and cheap!) to pass up. So until we make pie, we decorated our white pumpkin. Santa Curcurbita! If it makes a good pie, I'll save some seeds to plant next summer.




* I can't call this time of year "winter" in Southern California, lest someone in Vermont or Maine rise up from under several feet of snow to throw icicles at me. By the way, it was 80F over the weekend. (I will now duck to avoid hurled objects)

**I admit, technically, they are fruit non grata.