Garden surprises delight me each week. When tidying one of the perennial beds last week, we came upon two robust alpine strawberry plants. Though we’ve had a less satisfactory, low vining variety elsewhere, these were a spring surprise. It’s been nearly a decade since they were garden regulars.

We suspect the seeds in the soil waited for the “just right” conditions of cold and winter rain to germinate and grow into these dainty plants. This week they’ll receive some compost, a smidge of organic fertilizer and fresh mulch. Garden serendipity.

Most years in late April I’d be readying the raised beds for peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, zucchini and beans. Instead, with our cool and cloudy April various garden greens thrive, encouraged by drizzle and overcast skies. Harvested rainwater encourages continued good production.

I thickly sowed a row of Bright Lights chard, anticipating harvesting it as baby chard. The plants had other aspirations and have grown quite large. My vacation garden tender is especially fond of chard and I had forgotten how much I like it.

I have four blocks of Catalina spinach (Renee’s Garden) growing now. With succession sowing, one wanes, one is several weeks away and two produce bountifully now. In healthy, compost-enriched soil an 18 x 18 inch scatter-sown block can be very productive.

Salads are a cinch with so many choices.

Kumquat slivers simmered in a half-strength simple syrup top waffles or pancakes, Greek yogurt or bananas.. It freezes well and thankfully, kumquats store for a few weeks in the fridge.

Two other garden stars from last week: Violetto artichoke from Italy and Gilia tricolor, a California native.

Check the What I’m Planting Now page as I think spring in the garden. Then head to Harvest Monday, hosted by Dave at Happy Acres Blog and see what garden bloggers around the world harvested last week.

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