I noticed that several voracious stellar bluejays were hunting around where I had planted peas a few days ago. Normally I cover the peas and beans I plant from seed with a covering like Remay fabric, but I had not done so yet. Spotting the birds (who will eat the yummy seedlings) spurred me to get going. So I covered the peas today, and checked on the beans I planted awhile back (and had covered). Here is what it looked like.
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| Uncovered but already planted with peas |
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Covered with fabric
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| Bean seedlings under cover |
One other pic I'd like to share shows a section of beans planted two weeks ago that have been covered with fabric. It is so much better to have this kind of germination than to come out and find the bean seedlings decimated by birds.
Finally, here is a picture of our parsley.
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| parsley |
We have been letting it self-seed for a few years, and now have a bumper crop. What to do with it? Make parsley pesto! I used a recipe created by Annie Somerville of Greens restaurant in San Francisco and found at epicurious.com. It uses parsley, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, roasted pine nuts, and a touch of water in a blender to make a wonderful pesto sauce. Here is a pic from the blender (before we used it as a salad dressing).
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| parsley pesto |
Tonight, I've picked asparagus from both asparagus beds, three types of swiss chard, and some parsley to combine in a tomato sauce based baked ziti dish. Yum again. I have some Italian Dolcetto wine to go along with it. Here is a pic of the just picked goodies.
