mini harvest

I have one square, or four plants of chard in my garden. Two of them are big and have several leaves, whereas the other two are about an inch tall, and maybe the same size that they were a month ago. Wanting to even things up a little big and actually eat some vegetables, I picked a few leaves. I'm not sure if I've ever eaten chard before today. I didn't know what to do, but some recipes suggested stir frying it in butter. That advice has usually not steered me wrong in the past, so I tried it out. The chard was nice and leafy, almost like spinach but with less of that irony taste, and I was surprised to think that it was a little salty. I think I always expected it to be slightly bitter, but it wasn't. I'm saving the stems for something else.

Next up on my garden to-do list is to plant more lettuce in a pest-proof container. I've read that snails and slugs don't like to crawl over copper because it gives them a little electric shock. Those buggers have been eating up my lettuce and it is highly annoying. After waiting a long time, my lettuce sprouts finally got their first true leaves. I was excited and could almost taste the salad, but the next day when I went out to the garden, they were down to only one leaf apiece! No wonder the lettuce never seems to grow! This little arrangement should solve my pest problems, unless it's actually a rabbit doing the nibbling...