Game On

The weather was just right, and the cima di rapa was ready. Not quite the level of miracle, but after a warm, dry week and no watering, last week's planted rabe survived -hardy plant. I also had fennel herb and fennel bulb to plant, and lettuce of Boston and Romaine varieties.

In went the lettuce, planted wide in the tomato beds. Grow fast young lettuce!

And the cima di rapa, or broccoli rabe, planted in two tomato beds. We'll have a lot of this -all at once. I want to get smarter about succession planting, so that the best plant precedes the next crop, but also for extended harvesting. In this case, there is only time for one planting, as the tomatoes are growing rapidly.

The greens, a Johnny's mystery mix received from a friend with too much. We've been getting about 4 meals per week out of this tomato bed.

Nothing raises more questions at the garden than this modest strip of Allium vineale. Yes, I am cultivating the weed, the formerly cultivated, the cast out creation of our predecessors, and taste favorite of at least one blogging gardener-cook. I begin to wonder if garlic was selected for asexual reproduction, flowerless-ness, because of its inherent weediness when allowed to set seed? Did it take over their fields? The knowledgeable scoff, the uninitiated huh, and I get to feel like Dr. Frankenstein. I hope they don't chase me with flames and forks.