Pasta with Spring Vegetables

Last weekend we had a bit of a heat wave followed by a good soaking rain and everything in the garden just exploded. Yesterday all these peas appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. These ones in the photo above are an edible-podded pea called Golden of India. They’re quite striking with their pale yellow pods and magenta flowers. We have sugar snaps and a few varieties of shelling peas coming in too.

Asparagus season is on it’s way out around here. It will probably be gone in a week or two. I was feeling like I hadn’t quite had my fill yet, so today I picked up one last bunch to eat with the first of the peas and a few other garden pickings. The asparagus isn’t quite as sweet and tender as it was a month ago, but the peas more than make up for it. They are like candy.

April in the Garden

Spring arrived tentatively this year, but it feels like we’ve really turned the corner now. The grass seems to have greened up over night and lots of seedlings are breaking through the soil.

Emergence

Last week I was listening to a recent episode of the A Way to Garden podcast, in which the host Margaret Roach was talking to her sister Marion about what she’s dubbed “urgent garden questions.” Marion was saying that this time of year she spends a lot of time wondering if things are dead. This struck a chord with me, because like Marion I tend to be impatient, and I have a hard time believing that my perennials will have survived the winter.

March in the Garden

March in the garden is shaping up to look an awful lot like February in the garden this year. We had a couple of nice 50 degree days two weeks ago, and I really thought I’d be able to plant my peas by now. But winter returned last week and we got another 6 or 8 inches of snow. As of this afternoon there was still an inch or two on the ground. I stood there for a while staring at the snow, as if I could will it to melt away if I stared hard enough.