We are right smack dab in the middle of salad season. Our P-Patch plot is filled with rows of baby arugula and crumply heads of butter lettuce. And last week I discovered a few leaf lettuce volunteers growing between some fava beans.

To make sure our salads stay interesting, I keep a big selection of mix-ins on hand. Our freezer is stocked with slivered almonds, pine nuts, walnuts and hazelnuts. And you can usually find some good aged Parmesan, blue cheese, sheep’s milk feta, and goat cheese from the farmer’s market in the fridge.

I also like to use fresh herbs from the garden in salads, especially flat leaf parsley, cilantro, and chives. This year I’m also growing chervil for the first time, because I love the texture and flavor it adds to greens.

I’ve gotten in the habit of mixing up a fresh vinaigrette at the beginning of the week and storing it in a little glass carafe. That way I have everything on hand and it’s easy to throw together a salad at the last minute.

In my pantry I keep red and white wine, balsamic, rice, sherry, and apple cider vinegars. I’ve also started buying olive oil in bulk at PCC, which is a co-op here in Seattle. They carry a delicious, organic extra virgin olive oil from Napa. Buying it in bulk is very economical and also reduces the amount of packaging coming in and out of our house (for those of you who don’t live in Seattle, I’ve noticed that Whole Foods carries a couple of different bulk olive oils).

Lately, I’ve been on a bit of a citrus vinaigrette kick. Last week I made a delicious Parmesan citrus vinaigrette from 101 Cookbooks, and the week before I tried a lime dressing from Raising the Salad Bar by Catherine Walthers, which is filled with all sorts of inspirational salads (including one with grilled apricots that I can’t wait to try when apricots come into season).

But my favorite citrusy vinaigrette is a lemon thyme one that I created last summer. I was inspired by a super simple salad I tried at a potluck. All it contained was mixed greens tossed with a lemony vinaigrette and an injudicious amount of Parmesan cheese. It was out of this world and has become my go-to salad when I’m feeling lazy but still want to serve something healthy and delicious with dinner.

Lemon Thyme Vinaigrette

Lemon juice and zest give this vinaigrette a very bright, fresh taste and the thyme lends a subtle herby flavor. I like to use a ½ teaspoon of lemon thyme and a ½ teaspoon of English thyme, but a full teaspoon of either tastes equally good. The addition of white balsamic vinegar and honey balances out the tartness of the lemon juice. This dressing keeps well for up to two weeks in the fridge and for several days on the counter.

What you’ll need:

3 Tablespoons of lemon juice

Lemon zest from half a lemon

1 small garlic clove, finely minced

1 teaspoon fresh thyme, minced

3 teaspoons honey (or a bit more if you have a really sour lemon)

2 teaspoons white balsamic vinegar

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. In a small bowl whisk together all of the ingredients except the olive oil, salt, and pepper.

2. While you are whisking, add the olive oil in a slow, steady stream. Continue whisking until the vinaigrette is emulsified. Correct the seasonings (sometimes I add a bit more vinegar or honey) and add salt and pepper to taste. 

There is really nothing more romantic than watching your husband tear out huge chunks of lawn so you can build a garden. It’s better than long walks on the beach. And breakfast in bed. And staring at each other across a candlelit table. I can vouch, because for the past few weeks Jon has helped me build our incredible new kitchen garden, and the first step was getting rid of a 300 square foot hunk of grass.

On a rainy Saturday three weeks ago, we rented a sod cutter and our friend Roper came over with his awesome 2-wheel wheelbarrow. Jon cut the sod, I rolled it up, and Roper carted it off to the weedy no-man’s land between our fence and the alley.

Then we borrowed our neighbor’s super burly tiller to loosen up the compacted soil. The tiller turned up about 600 rocks, one early-1980s toy water gun, and a blue glass marble. After tilling, we let the chickens loose into the garden space. They were in hen heaven, scratching up the soil, clucking, eating grubs, and depositing little bits of nitrogen everywhere.

Hen Heaven

Taking out the sod was the fun part, because we spent the next few weeks lugging wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of compost into the backyard. Needless to say, I was ready to finally install the garden this past weekend.

Jon built 5 gorgeous raised beds (he used cedar boards recycled from a section of fence we removed last summer) and filled them with soil while I planted our new herb garden and barbecue area.

The East Side of the Garden

The West Side of the Garden

I’m going to install some trellises on the fence for pole beans and cucumbers, and Jon’s building a little fence to keep the chickens out, and we still have loads of veggies and raspberries to plant, and nasturtiums to seed along the pathways, and the soil needs tons of help…but for now I’m just so happy to have a garden approximately ten steps away from my back door.

Squash Seedlings Ready for Their New Home

Planting Our Favorite Lettuce

Jon and I paid a visit to northern England and Scotland in January. Yes, we chose to go to garden nirvana in the coldest, darkest, rainiest, most dormant time of the year. Not surprisingly, every single public garden was closed, but the trip was not a total wash from a gardening perspective, because I discovered Garden Boutique, a delightful web shop created by the English garden designer, Alice Bowe.

Alice has a great aesthetic and her site is filled with all sorts of useful, pretty things for the garden. Since returning home, I’ve zeroed in on a couple of favorites:

I normally don’t really like garden ornaments, but I think that these crowns would look awesome centered in a pot with dwarf pea vines (like ‘Tom Thumb’) twining through them and maybe some nasturtiums circling around the rest of the container. 

We own a total of five chairs (including my office chair and the two bistro chairs on our deck), which makes for some interesting seating arrangements at dinner parties. I really want to have a few of these vintage English folding chairs to set around at barbecues and to use indoors in a pinch.

Another English shop that I’m in love with is Baileys (housemartin turned me on to them). They carry a carefully edited line of vintage, recycled, and sustainable goods for the house and garden. Basically I wish my life looked like their website, but since it doesn’t, I like to spend my lunch hour ogling their collection of lovely wire baskets and vintage garden tools. Sigh, if only the exchange rate was in our favor…

Clockwise from left: Vintage tools. Restored vintage tools aren’t just for decoration in my book, a lot of the time they are sturdier and work better than new tools. Wooden pot maker. This cool tool allows you to recycle newspaper into seedling pots. The biodegradable pots are perfect for giving squash and zinnias a head start indoors. Twine in a tin. I use tons of sisal twine in my garden, especially when building trellises. I like it better than plastic baling twine because I can throw everything, twine, plants and all into the compost at the end of the season. This little innovation really helps prevent the twine from becoming a hopelessly tangled mess. Crate on wheels. There is usually a pile of muddy wellies, tools, and garden gloves next to our back door. Containing my mess in this crate would look so much better!

Clockwise from top left to right. Wire egg basket. We’ve had four pet hens for almost a year now, and I still don’t have an egg gathering basket. I definitely wouldn’t mind keeping this one on my kitchen counter. Birch Trug. Plastic tub trugs are great because they are indestructible and you can carry everything from compost to plant starts in them, but this wooden trug would look so nice swinging from my arm in the garden or at the farmer’s market. Cow pitcher. When I was a kid my dad would pour me a bowl of cereal and give me my milk in a cow pitcher just like this one! It’s a great memory, and I’d love to give one of these to all of the kids in my life. Confit jar and spoon. One of my big gardening/cooking goals for the year is to to learn to can. These jars would make perfect drinking glasses when the homemade jam is gone!

We’ve had a terrible spring in Seattle. Torrential rain, clouds almost every single day, snow storms in March, and historically cold temperatures. I’ve been extremely grumpy about the whole situation. My peas rotted twice, my spinach never took off and the slugs have been very, very active.

I’ve been wishing loudly for the past few months for just a couple days of nice weather to no avail. But someone must have been listening to all my whining (other than Jon) because Mother Nature finally delivered one gorgeous weekend. It was sunny and warm for three straight days. On Saturday night I found myself wearing a sleeveless dress and sipping beers on the patio of my favorite bar until 10:00 pm. And I didn’t even have to put on a sweater.

I also went to two barbecues, whiled away a few hours at a nursery, ripped out more of our stupid lawn, bought baby turnips and rhubarb at the farmer’s market, and managed to get only slightly sunburned. It was the best.

My veggies over at our P-Patch seemed to like the nice weather too…take a look!

The World’s Cutest Radish

Pretty, Pretty Pac Choi

Strawberries Are In My Future

Yesterday I had every intention of weeding a flowerbed in my front yard. I did, honest. But before I even pulled my first weed, I noticed a few clumps of purple bunching onions that were just beginning to flower. It was the best surprise! I completely forgot that I planted them there last summer, along with a crazy bunch of sunflowers, zinnias and tomatoes.

I grow bunching onions for the onions, of course, but I love to snack on their flowers, too. The petals are kind of crunchy and taste like a chive onion combo with a hot little zing at the end. 

Herby, garlicky butters are a standard at our house, and I figured that these slender purple onions and their flowers would make a fine substitution for chives, which are my go-to herb for butters. So instead of weeding, I decided to make some spring onion butter.

This was not a bad choice. For starters, the butter tastes super good on crackers. It also happens to go well with broccoli.

A couple of days ago, I discovered a stand of purple sprouting broccoli at our community garden that was just about to flower. I took a little nibble and found that the shoots were still totally tender and completely tasty. So I harvested a huge bunch and took it home. For dinner last night, I melted a few tablespoons of the spring onion butter in a big frying pan and popped in the broccoli shoots. I tossed the broccoli around until the stems were bright green and the florets were beginning to crisp up a bit. Yum! I ate most of my share straight out of the pan.

Spring Onion Butter

Try this butter melted over peas, asparagus, and tender green beans or spread on a crusty baguette. I suspect it tastes good floating on top of hot lentil soup, too. Herb butter freezes well for up to three months if wrapped tightly in plastic wrap.

What you’ll need:

1 teaspoon finely minced spring onion bottoms (the white part, roots removed)

1 teaspoon finely minced spring onion greens

1 small clove of garlic, minced (about ½ teaspoon)

Spring onion flowers (chives flowers will work in a pinch)

4 tablespoons salted butter at room temperature

Directions:

Put the butter in a small mixing bowl. Open up the onion or chive flowers, separate the petals and sprinkle them over the butter. Add in the onions (white and green parts) and garlic, then mash everything up with a fork until well combined.

Seattle Tilth hosted their 25^th annual Edible Plant Sale this past weekend. I went to the sale with a carefully plotted list, but upon arrival, I lost all self-control and came home with 49 plants. As you can see they barely fit in the trunk of our car. I bought 6 different tomatoes, 6 peppers, 1 eggplant, 2 artichokes, a winter and a summer squash, and tons of herbs. I think it will definitely be a tasty summer at our house.

I’m super excited to get all our new plants in the ground, but there is just one problem: our new kitchen garden is not quite finished. On Saturday, we rented a sod cutter machine and cut out a big chunk of our back lawn.

It was awesome.

In less than an hour we removed an expanse of weedy grass and, voila!, we had a new place to grow food. It was pretty much the most productive and useful thing I’ve done in a long time.

This week we are going to finish up building the raised beds (only 3 more to go) and I’ve ordered up a big load of compost and some topsoil to be delivered. Hopefully by next Monday I can show off some photos of our new garden, but in the meantime I thought you might want to see some scenes from the plant sale extravaganza.

A Shopping Cart Garden Style

Irresistible Plants

Baby Pumpkins

A Sea of Tomatoes

Lovely Sage