Anticipations of spring...

[deborahjross]

The calendar may not know it, but the miner's lettuce sure thinks it's spring! We use it as a wild cover crop, and it has erupted everywhere. Some of the leaves are well over 2" in diameter. I gathered a bunch, washed and dried it, and served it dressed with raspberry vinaigrette and topped with defrosted blackberries from last summer. Whatever endorphins are released by fresh greens after months of winter slog are currently flooding my system.

Dave says there's some baby arugula, too. It's naturalized in our garden, so it's everywhere, but I have to pick it when it's small and tender, so as to be not-too-bitter. Spring salad, part 2, coming up!

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Wait, what? Miner's lettuce...? *consults Wikipedia* Oh - winter purslane! Yup, we have that. And wild rocket, that you call arugula. Om nom nom.

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

The major problem with both is harvesting, all that bending over. The ground's far too damp to kneel/crawl. Maybe I should hire some hobbits...?

Spring salad, part 2

[davetrow.livejournal.com]

Add some wintered-over onions that didn't bulb, and maybe some of the season's first asparagus, and we'll have quite an elegant, mostly-wild salad.

Asparagus counts as wild here, since it naturalizes fairly well. For that matter, so does lettuce--but none's come up yet.

Re: Spring salad, part 2

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

Except for those two rather bedraggled lettuces that overwintered.

That one big chard plant is looking quite exuberant. I pulled off some outside stalks, sauteed them in olive oil with garden green onions, added a handful of raisins and dribbled on balsamic vinegar.