Sometimes I’ll notice a small element in my garden that stops me in my tracks. Like these water droplets clinging to the rumpled surface of my savoy cabbage. It’s details like this that makes gardening so addictive. You never know when you might run across a perfect spiderweb suspended between tomato cages or a hummingbird darting in and out of the pineapple sage.

When I planted this little cabbage in the corner of a raised bed it looked small and lonely, but as it grew it filled in the space beautifully. I hesitate to harvest the head now, not because I am unsure how I want to prepare it, but because it is one  of my favorite stops on my daily garden tour. Silly, I know. But I’ll kind of miss it when it is gone.

English peas rank right up there with tomatoes and strawberries on my list of favorite things to grow. One of my very earliest memories is standing in my mom’s garden between two rows of peas that were taller than me. She taught me how to unzip the pod and pop the sweet peas right into my mouth—something I still love to do.

My current obsession is to toss English peas with pasta and garlic scape pesto. In this dish you don’t even have to cook the peas. You just shell them directly into a colander and pour the boiling pasta water over them. The heat from the water and the pasta cooks the peas just a bit. It is so crazy good. I’ve had it three times in the past week.

Now that it is finally hot, I am going to harvest the remainder of our peas and pull out their vines. I’m thinking about making fresh pea hummus crostini with pea tendril garnish, but I’m open to other ideas!

Ruffled, tender, sweet. Fun to dress up. Lettuce is kind of the baby doll of the garden.

Our beds are dotted with heads of frilly leaf lettuces, upright romaines, an heirloom iceberg, and delicate butterheads. I prefer to grow full heads, rather than baby greens, because they look pretty planted in patterns and their mature leaves offer the best of both worlds: a satisfying crunchy base and tender tops.

Lettuce comes in an astounding variety (‘Tom Thumb’, a single serving-sized butterhead, is pictured above). Here’s a round up of my favorites.

‘Forellenschluss’ (also known as ‘Flashy Troutback’) is my absolute favorite lettuce variety. This heirloom has pretty red speckled green leaves and holds up well in heat. One large head easily makes a salad that can serve four and the leaves have a very mild flavor. Planted next to the ‘Forellenschluss’ is a red leaf lettuce that self-sowed in my garden. I’m not sure what the variety is, but if I had to guess I’d say ‘Outredgeous’ or ‘Merlot’ (Just a note on ‘Merlot’. It’s a popular heat-tolerant variety and very pretty, but I think it tastes bad).

The hardware store by my house was selling flats of sweet alyssum for $6 earlier this spring, so I bought a couple and planted it as a border in several of my beds. The little flowers lure in a lot of pollinators and beneficial insects and set off my green and red romaine lettuces nicely.

I discovered this green and red leaf lettuce growing in my path earlier this spring. It apparently self-sowed from the winter salad mix I grew last fall. I have no idea what the variety is, but I love leaf lettuces for their pretty open growth habit. I often pop out and harvest just a few leaves and stuff them into sandwiches at lunchtime.

For those of you who have been following my great iceberg lettuce experiment, I’m happy to report that nice big heads are forming. Hurrah! Despite its name, iceberg lettuce is supposed to handle heat with aplomb. So I’m going to give this head at least another week before I harvest it.

This speckled lettuce looks a lot like ‘Forellenschluss’, but it is a French butterhead variety called ‘Anuenue’. It’s just lovely!

I have never met a green I didn’t like. Mustards. Collards. Broccoli rabe. Bok Choy. Pak Choy. Arugula. Spinach. Radish Tops. Beet Greens. Swiss chard. Kale. Cabbage. I love them all.

Consequently we eat greens at virtually every meal around here, especially at this time of year. Most often I just saute the greens with a bit of garlic and call it good, but I also stir them into eggs, stuff them into empanadas, and add them to soup. Here are 10 simple ideas for eating more greens!

Basic Sauteed Greens

Gather greens from the garden (it is okay to mix and match the greens). Plan on harvesting at least 2 1/2 cups of raw greens per person, as they will really cook down. Remove any tough stems. Chop into slender 1/2 inch ribbons or small pieces. Place the greens in a colander and rinse them well under a stream of cool water. Shake off the excess water and set aside.

Heat one or two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in a very large skillet over medium heat. Force two plump cloves of garlic through a press and add to the oil. Cook the garlic until slightly softened and fragrant, about 30 seconds. Raise the heat to medium high and add in the damp greens. Toss with tongs until just barely wilted and bright green. Remove from the heat, sprinkle with a bit of kosher salt and red pepper flakes. Serve!

Mix-ins:

Asian. Add a tablespoon of minced ginger in with the garlic. Instead of salt, toss the cooked greens with a bit of tamari.

Italian. Toss the cooked greens with golden raisins and toasted pine nuts (this version is especially good with broccoli rabe).

Moroccan. Cut a preserved lemon in half, remove the flesh and cut away the pith. Rinse the remaining lemon skin under water to remove extra salt; then mince. Saute the preserved lemon with the garlic and a spoonful of harissa for about a minute before adding the greens.

Sesame. Drizzle a bit of toasted sesame oil (a little goes a long way) over the greens. Toss and then garnish with toasted sesame seeds.

Spicy. Finely mince a serrano pepper (I usually removed the seeds) and add it in with the garlic. Or stir a little sriracha sauce into some soy sauce and toss with cooked greens.

Simple Greens-Based Entrees

Easy Empanadas. I got the idea to make these vegetarian empanadas from my friend Katy. Thaw two sheets of puff pastry for 45 minutes. On a floured surface, roll the pastry out to a 1/4 inch thickness. Cut out 6 inch rounds. Smear a bit of olive tapenade in the center of each round, then place a mound of sauteed greens on top of the tapenade, plus a bit of grated cheese. Fold the pastry over on top of itself (to form a half moon shape). Seal. Brush with egg and bake in a 425 degree F oven until golden brown.

Quick Tart. On a piece of parchment paper, roll out a pie crust into an 8 inch circle (you can use a store bought crust, I won’t tell). Sprinkle a half cup of parmesan cheese over the crust. Mound greens into the center of the crust, leaving a 1-inch border. Fold the border over the outside edge of the greens. Sprinkle more cheese over the center of the tart. Transfer the tart onto a baking sheet and bake in a 350 degree oven until the crust is browned.

Lazy Soup. Place 3/4 cup of sauteed greens in the bottom of a deep soup bowl. Top with warmed chicken or vegetable broth. If you like, add in any of the following: thinly sliced snow or snap peas, shelled english peas, roasted asparagus, cooked rice or lentils, cooked tofu or chicken, a bit of grated cheese, croutons.

Green Eggs (Ham Optional). Whisk four eggs together with a bit of milk and grated parmesan cheese. Melt some butter over medium heat in a large skillet. Pour in the eggs and scramble them. When the eggs just begin to form curds, add in the greens and continue to cook until the eggs reach your desired consistency. Or, use the greens to stuff an omelette. Add in ham or prosciutto if you like.

My heirloom ‘Red Iceberg’ lettuce is looking decidedly tasty.

I never thought those words would come out of my mouth! But, as you can see, this is one nice looking lettuce. It just might move me into the iceberg lover camp. The inner leaves are beginning to curl over themselves, but I think it will still be a few weeks before the crisp head is ready for harvest. That fact hasn’t stopped me from planning a meal centered around this (hopefully!) delicious experiment. Can you say wedge salad with roquefort dressing, fried chicken and biscuits? Yum!

‘Tom Thumb’ is an heirloom shelling pea that grows only 4 to 6 inches tall. Developed in the late 18th century, this super dwarf variety was originally bred for cold frame production. Its short stature makes it perfectly suited for growing under glass and the variety is said to be particularly cold tolerant. I’ve been wanting to grow ‘Tom Thumb’ for several years, so when I spotted a packet of it at the grocery store of all places, I snapped it up!

I sowed the entire packet into a rectangular wooden window box on March 21. The seeds germinated quickly and evenly and the little plants started flowering this week! I can’t wait to try the peas. I’m expecting 3 or 4 pods per plant!

I love the idea of a garden mobile. I would drive it around wherever I went and when people asked me about the plants growing on top of my car, I would hand them a little card with a salad garden plan on it. I’d tell them all about my favorite vegetable garden resources. Then, I’d whip a pair of scissors out of my pocket and snip off a handful of herbs and give them a bouquet garni right then and there.

I understand this is not entirely practical. But it would be fun. I think it might even inspire a few people to start gardens. For sure it would get them to talk about gardens. And that, I think, is the next best thing.

If you like the idea of mobile gardens, you should definitely check out the BACSACs at A + R Store. These French-designed containers come in a number of sizes and styles and are made from a super sturdy, UV resistant material that is permeable. They are totally cool and would be an excellent choice for renters, because you could just pick your garden up and take it with you on moving day!

A lot of people don’t like radishes, which is so sad. They are really one of the great under appreciated vegetables. I think they get a bad rap because the ones at the store are so often old, pithy, and spicy. Sometimes they even have a rubbery texture.

Homegrown radishes are an entirely different story. They are delightfully crunchy and have a mild flavor as long as you keep them consistently moist and pull them young—just after their shoulders pop up out of the soil. I love to harvest the roots, rinse them off, dip their tips in salt and pop them in my mouth. The French often serve thinly sliced radishes on a piece of buttered, crusty baguette. If you don’t like radishes, try them that way. You just might change your mind! Trust me on this.

I always sow radish seed thickly because I love to thin out the spicy sprouts and add them to a cheese sandwich or salad. The seeds germinate in just a couple of days and the roots are ready in just over a month (or less when the soil is warm). The greens have a velcro-like texture when raw, but they are chock full of vitamins and delicious cooked. I twist off the tops and cook them just as I would arugula or spinach (they are especially good in eggs). Chickens also don’t mind a snack of radish tops.

I sow radishes every two or three weeks in bare spots around the garden. Radishes come in a huge range of colors including black, watermelon (white on the outside, red on the inside), pink, purple, white, and of course, red. I have some ‘French Breakfast’ radishes in the garden right now. Unlike most garden radishes, they have cylindrical red roots with white tips. Such a fun alternative to regular red! Radishes send up a seed stalk in warm weather. The short seed pods have a spicy flavor and taste wonderful stir-fried with chervil. In fall, if you allow a few radishes to go to seed, they will often self-sow and grow in spring!

There are countless ways to trellis peas, but one of the best and least expensive techniques is to use tree and shrub trimmings as a support. These “pea sticks”, as they are called in England, work particularly well because peas love to twine their tendrils around twiggy growth.

My friend Mari cut her yellow twig dogwood down to the ground earlier this spring to encourage it to send up new shoots and kindly gave me the lovely chartreuse stems to use as pea sticks. They barely fit in the back of my car!

Pea sticks can simply be pushed into the ground behind a row of peas or gathered together into an informal obelisk. I chose the obelisk route since I’m growing my peas in large, galvanized containers.

Freshly cut dogwood stems root readily in damp soil. To prevent this, I allowed the ends to dry out for nearly three weeks before I used them. To build the obelisks, I stuck five or six stems into the  soil, cinched the tops down with twine, and sowed peas around the base. The peas are now nearly 3 inches tall and will soon be scrambling up the sticks. I’m planning on growing cucumbers up the obelisks when the peas stop producing in late-May.

Just a few minutes ago something landed with a big thud on our front porch. I opened the door and found the best surprise: a little box from Nichols Garden Nursery. I knew that my sunchoke tubers were inside! They don’t look like much now, but these knobby little tubers will send up stalks topped with happy yellow flowers in late summer. Sunchokes (also known as Jerusalem Artichokes) are native to North America. The tubers have a delicious flavor that falls somewhere between a water chestnut and an artichoke and the flowers grow to nearly six feet tall.

They are the very definition of an ornamental edible. I’m planting mine right by the front door and sowing a mix of cosmos, zinnias, bacherlor buttons, and coreopsis at their feet. I just love that I’ll be able to enjoy the flowers all summer and then dig up something edible in fall. So fun!