In My San Diego Garden and Kitchen

Though the calendar does not yet mark spring, the garden presents evidence. The first artichoke is a harbinger of the coming season. The Italian purple artichokes will come in a few weeks to delight us as the winter vegetables finish their run,

The cool weather and recent rains keep the celery in prime condition. The carrots and beets size up and succession plantings of lettuce make salads a daily fare. The apple tree sets fruit and the apricot and nectaplum trees bloom and are abuzz with bees.

My son, Tim made a hasty trip from LA to San Diego for business. I gathered a basket of his favorites which is a sampling of what we harvested this week. In my delivery there were also oranges, jars of jam and sweet peas. We long for the days of real visits and hugs.

My lazy method of growing carrots yields half-size carrots on thinning. Smaller ones go in salads. They are perfectly crisp-tender and sweet.

The last sowing of ‘Easter Egg II’ radishes got away from me. I roasted the largest ones with other garden vegetables.

They worked well in a veggie-rice bowl. A few kumquat slivers and a squeeze of lime brightened the flavors.

Butternut squash stored from the fall, and roasted this week became a luscious blended soup with sourdough Parmesan croutons.

The last of the Romanesco graced this salad with the small broccoli side shoots tossed in.

To those of you in another winter blast or slogging about in mud season, I wish I could share the fragrance of these species freesias that filled my kitchen for days. Spring is coming.

You may enjoy seeing what other garden bloggers harvested last week at Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

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