Marketing

I love greenhouses. Especially when they belong to farmers who come to the market. It has really opened up the spring offerings. I mean, I love kale as much as the next guy -- assuming that next guy isn't Josh because he actually could eat it every day -- but it's really awesome to have the selection we've been lucky enough to have this year.

We got a bunch of super-peppery arugula from William at Hennessey. We've gotten it a few times this year either from Hennessey at Burge but it's SO peppery... too much for me. So I just mix it up for Josh and he eats it all. Hennessey also had beautiful shitakes. I told him we wanted to grill them on the Egg so they are larger than we normally get. Also, a head of butter lettuce from McMullan. They just have the most beautiful lettuce heads. I am not sure why many people don't carry these lettuces, but L mentioned that lettuce is so easy to grow that many people grow it at home and won't buy it. I think growing lettuce is a pain.

We had to pick up a special order at McMullan so we went there first. So we picked up some broccoli, cauliflower, and snap peas. The broccoli we got here is clustered tighter and the snap peas are loose. We try to not take containers if we don't have to and return them if we do. Then we went to Hennessey and Burge. At Hennessey, he had broccoli too (you see here they are bigger ... um, whatever they are called). I'll eat Egg'd broccoli every day! SO we bought more. We also bought those spring onions. And then at Burge, we bought more snap peas because they had them and they were so happy.

So L explained to us that because McMullan has the heated greenhouses, they tend to have things out of season or they have things earlier than everyone else. So this explains why they have broccoli and snap peas for a couple weeks and others are just having them now. So I'm happy we didn't just buy from McMullan. Perhaps that is why we should stick to going to them last. Anyway, the loots are exciting.

Here was our special order from McMullan. These squash blossoms are just gorgeous. We had asked for six to twelve, whatever they could have for us. They are big and beautiful. And $3 a bag. What a deal, I know. I shouldn't say that too loudly because otherwise, they will realize how in demand they are and we won't be able to get them anymore.

We had dinner plans with L+H so we asked H to cook them up (we are such demanding friends). She stuffed them with ricotta and then fried them in a light tempura batter and topped it with a thickened balsamic reduction. SO GOOD. Yum.

We bought some more veggie plants from Yoder to round out my earthboxes. We have here one pattypan squash, one Chinese eggplant (Orient Express), and a thin-skinned seedless cucumber. Josh also picked up a basil plant because I needed basil so I planted that in there too. The herbs from seed are growing very slowly so I'm glad to have the basil plant. It keeps for the least amount of time.

The plants seem happy so far in their earthboxes. They aren't drinking much, so I hope that I've done the planting properly. They aren't wilting yet, at least, so I have hope that they will do okay. I finally gave up on the aerogarden tomatoes. That one little one that we have had has been out there for weeks and it just reached an inch across. So I'll clean up that aerogarden too and turn them off for a while.