Local gardener: Our seeds have begun to sprout

It's me. I'm the local gardener. And we've got a garden full of little plants.

I admit — I spent a few weeks in April looking down at the soil like I was waiting for a pot of water to boil, hearing Jagger ask “Where are the seeds?” and wondering if I’d messed up our whole crop by planting too early, too deep, or too something.

Then I was reminded to be patient. It rained and got warmer (April showers, yadda yadda). And the seeds did what seeds do — most of them, anyway — and now instead of looking down at dirt, we’re looking at dirt dotted with rows and rows of happy green seedlings.

The hose had just sputtered a bit, and I told him it was burping. ‘It’s burping, you said? No way, Dad!’

Our best growers so far are arugula, which is already ready to pluck and eat; Landreth “stringless” beans; 49er yellow squash; ruby gem lettuce; and the Tribute strawberry plants we ordered as roots. We also planted a small rosemary shrub and a Brandy Boy tomato plant that we picked up from Two Gander Farm at a recent Bryn Mawr Farmers Market. Some cucumber, broccoli, fennel, Italian parsley, and Thai basil are coming up, but we’re having a harder go of it with watercress, radicchio, shishito, lemongrass, and shiso.

A ceramic garden gnome that Jagger had painted was keeping watch over things, but he fell down in a gust of wind and broke into many pieces. We replaced him with two little ceramic painted dinosaurs — a brontosaurus and a T-rex — that are waiting to dry before we put them out to scare away the rabbits and squirrels.

He always finds water on our hikes.

While waiting for the garden to grow, we’ve taken some family hikes, which is something we really started last year around the beginning of the pandemic. A trail that Jagger may have only walked halfway last year before requesting “uppy,” this year he makes it the whole way and talks the whole time and keeps lookout for things to forage.

We made out with a few small hauls of wild ramps and fiddlehead ferns this spring. We cooked some and pickled the rest. The pickled ramps lent themselves well to a focaccia paired with some of fresh rosemary from our garden, which Jagger helped me make for Mother’s Day. You don’t need pickled ramps or a holiday as an excuse to make focaccia, though. I love this Bon Appetit recipe from Sarah Jampel that requires a bit of time but very little effort — and no kneading. The step-by-step video instructions are helpful (especially, I think, for Step 4), and the garlic-butter baste at the end is ::chef’s kiss:: deeee-lish-ious.

Thank you for reading! Until next time: Happy growing.