This was a really good lunch, light, healthy, and tasty. Joe put cubed potatoes into the steamer, and got them started, while he prepared asparagus, green onions, tomatoes, which he placed on top. Last of all he put on thawed flounder. He steamed everything until the fish was done, and the vegetables were crisp-tender.
He opened a gift of New York State white wine, saved from the holidays, which was very delicious, and complimented the whole meal.
This marjoram plant is a real survivor. Planted last fall, most of its sibling plants did not grow, or started to grow, and died. I tasted a bit of its leaf, and this plant has a definite herbal flavor. A few other plants may have survived, but the true marjoram is rather difficult to distinguish from a certain weed which is right now about the same size. Lesson learned: Plant marjoram in the early spring.
The fall planted plants which did not fare very well were chives, short dill, short radishes, dill which was lower lying right next to the back edge, carrots, beets, onions, sage, basil, sorrell, marjoram, oregano.
The shorter, more bluish plants are oregano. They also have an herbal taste. but the taller plants might be weeds, or they might be marjoram. I cannot tell yet.
So I have to learn to tell some weeds from seedlings. When I have just planted seeds, and a lot of them sprout soon afterward, this is easy. When I have planted a lot of seeds, and they do not grow well, it is hard to tell if a plant is a weed or a sprout.
I need to learn to plant the seeds of different kinds at the right time to maximize their growth. The plants which eventually grew fairly well were large radishes, larger dill, lettuce, parsley, cilantro.
I need to learn which plants are annual, and which are perennial. For example, I understand that most vegetables are annual, and may even be planted several time a year. But herbs can vary in this respect. For example, sorrel is perennial, parsley is biannual, and cilantro is annual.
I need to learn how much of the different kinds of plants we like to eat. Perhaps, though we may not get very much sage, we may not need very much sage.
An overview of the kitchen garden in the late afternoon on FEB 15, 2014. Because this garden is now a “going concern” in that several items have a present and/or future harvest, I am blogging this by date of photos. In summary of the first few months of this garden: