Tuesday, March 16, 2010

A 24 Carrot St. Patty's Day

What a day. It's the day before St. Patrick's Day and a beautiful sunshiny day that just demands work out in the garden. While Jim planted stakes for our fruit trees to be shipped soon, and strung the lines to provide support for the growing grapevines, I worked in the garden. The snow's melted off at last and I pulled the plastic off the raised beds I planted last fall to find that I have tiny plants coming up under there! We have collards and lettuces, spinach, onion and garlic. What a bounty! Small, but it's a start.
I cleaned out the tiniest raised bed of ours to ready it to put the cabbage and broccoli plants from the greenhouse to start them early. They're tough, and able to cope with the cold weather to come. As I worked to loosten the soil to put in the plants, I found all those tiny carrots I left in the ground in the fall. They were too small at that time, so I left them in the sandy soil to grow over the winter. What a delicious bounty! I found a lot of carrots in really uneven sizes and shapes, and three big onions, along with a lot of happy, contented earthworms keeping the soil loose and healthy. The carrots smelled deliciously like sweet carrot and fresh earth and went along with tonight's corned beef and cabbage, our, "almost St. Patrick's Day" celebratory meal. Jim cooks this meal by tradition, and it was even better than usual.I pulled all the carrots and planted that little bed with tiny cabbage and broccoli plants and watered the other plants in the bigger bed to encourage them for early season growth.Dinner was delicious and we thoroughly enjoyed it with a big glass of red wine. The Guinness will wait until tomorrow night at our favorite Irish Pub, Kate's in New Carlisle.
Tomorrow's the big day. Ever since our honeymoon trip to the Emerald Isle, we take our Irish holiday seriously around here and want to wish you the best: friends who wish you well, someone to swap stories with, as well as a brimming glass of something delicious to enjoy on this beloved Irish Holiday. And, since we've actually kissed the Blarney stone, we wish you a touch of the magic of the Emerald Isle-may you have the skill to give tongue to intriguing stores and entertaining lies and truth. You choose which!

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