It was about ten weeks ago that I last wrote to you all. In that time Katy and I ate all of the cold frame lettuce, turnips and radishes, and the hearty collards and kale. We ate regularly from the garden until the second week of January when we had our last salad and fresh greens. Katy and I have been eating home grown food since then but it has all been frozen or canned. That is about to change again with the coming of SPRING!

The darkest quarter of the year is over and spring is right around the corner and the early harvest season of eating tiny plants is about to come. Under the cold frames there are some turnips, radishes, kale and collards that have overwintered and they are beginning to grow again in our returning light. There are also the new crops of arugula and lettuce that germinated and grew under the cold frames. 

It takes time to turn those tiny plants into a salad. I have written before that I have the patience for the hours of labor to pick the greens to make a single tiny salad. I can sit there doing that task because I know if I put in the work now, later it will take only ten minutes to pick the greens for ten salads. I do need to thin the fresh crop of arugula soon or the individual plants will over-compete and produce less.

In the pictures above there are thousands of arugula plants and one kale plant and one spinach plant. Back in November when I planted this bed I probably planted about 100 spinach seeds and I am unsure how the kale got there. I wish more spinach survived the winter but grateful for the one that did and as you can see too many arugula plants survived. There is some serious thinning of arugula to do as this variety grows best when there is a single plant on six inch centers. My guess is that there are at least a hundred to be pulled for every plant that I allow to grow to maturity.

About four years ago I was standing on our porch overlooking the Hull garden alongside my son in law Josh Modell. Josh asked me what I was most proud of in the garden and I looked out and said the arugula plot. I told him that it was the most unusual part of the garden and I explained the process by which I grow the arugula plot. That plot of greens that year like this year comes from a November spreading of the arugula stalks full of seed pods and then covering it with a cold frame, no digging at all.

This week as I lifted the cold frame for the first time since putting it down in November to see what was under there I was reminded of a story my Uncle Henry told me. My Uncle Henry taught me how to make pottery and how to live a life. I went to spend the summer with him and Mary in 1976 when I was fifteen. In a Carrot Day post soon after his death I wrote about him. That post, among other things, was about shallow wells to water beds of vegetables. My brother John on reading the post proclaimed, “The post was about how I learned of shallow wells from a ‘deep well.’ ” The “deep well” is my mentor Henry Pope.  

Back to the story Henry told me, a big part of the joy of ceramics is the mystery of what happens in the kiln. Henry told me a story of a potter. The potter was an old man and a renowned potter, so renowned that the government of Japan had made him a “National Treasure.” Despite his age, experience and skill he would peek into the kiln as it was cooling. He could not wait to see what had happened in there. I felt that same way when I uncovered the arugula plot from its cold frame. I know it can be unwise to look under the plastic too soon just as it can be unwise to peek in a kiln when it has not cooled down enough. I was like the old potter who could not wait and I took the risk and as I took that risk I thought of Henry. The green carpet under that cold frame was magic just as is remembering Henry was magic.

Turnips on the left and radishes on the right. They are both members of the brassica family and they sure do look a lot alike.

So spring is coming — I force it early with the cold frames. The carrot seeds have been ordered and I hope I can send them to you. I hope that I can send seeds to 10 schools and 100 individuals.

They are free. Click this link to order your seeds. I can’t wait to hear from you.