Our First Harvest: Spinach and Mesclun Mix

Today, we harvested our first spinach and mesclun mix for a salad with dinner.

After years of buying spinach and baby greens mixes from the store, I was surprised at how great ours came out, that we planted ourselves. They look and taste just like store-bought greens, but I know mine don't have pesticides all over them. That is excitement in itself - knowing what I'm eating.  It's so much cheaper, too. We spent about $4 on seeds for spinach and I bet we would have spent about that on greens for a couple of salads. We are going to get tons of salads from our garden. We've also been using water from our rain barrels, so we haven't spent much on water and sunlight is free.

Ryan and I made a salad with a mixture of spinach and baby greens. It was one of the best salads I've ever had. The greens are so tender and almost sweet, I don't remember ones from the store tasting that way. Ryan ate his entire salad before he ever took a second bite of his pork -- he said that's never happened in his life.

We also planted some tomatoes and peppers in our second bed. We didn't want to wait much longer because the biggest tomato plant really needed to be transplanted as soon as possible because it was getting wilted and sad looking. I added a bunch of compost to the soil where I planted it, so hopefully it will perk back up.  I added compost to each hole we dug for each plant.

Tomatoes will be plentiful this year with four different types of tomato plants: Black From Tula, Sweeties, Chef's Choice and Early Girl. I can't wait until we can harvest, but I guess it's a ways out.

I also bought a huge flower pot for herbs, (above, right). I planted the Siam Queen basil plant and kitchen thyme I bought last week at the Topeka farmers market in there, as well as some assorted basil seeds.  In the pot, before planting, I put topsoil, potting mix and compost and mixed it all together. After planting, I watered substantially with rain-barrel water.

I planted two types of basil: A Custom blend, which is an heirloom blend, and a blend called Dolce Vita blend. Both need full sun and are supposed to be sown after the last chance of spring frost.  The Doce Vita package says there are six different types of basils inside, whereas the custom blend had seven varieties.

Now, just gotta keep watering and let the sun do its magic.