First harvest and November blooms

Mel Bartholomew, in his Square-Foot Gardening book, advises his readers to thin out seedlings before they grow too big. It makes perfect sense. However, I felt more than a twinge of guilt at the prospect. True, nothing in the plant world goes to waste: Mother Nature is incredibly efficient, amongst all her other superb qualities. Still, it seemed an illogical waste to me.

So, I hadn't been looking forward to thinning out the seedlings, until I discovered (rather brilliantly, I might add) that rather than letting the seedlings just return to the earth, I could eat them! share them with my better half! So, I set about snipping. It took a while. But it was worth it. Who knew that one, single, tiny sprout could provide such flavour and texture?

[caption id="attachment_155" align="alignnone" width="625"] Microgreens of cauliflower, swiss chard, beets, cilantro, dill, lettuce, and more.[/caption]

Nearly the size of microgreens. I ended up placing them in fresh salad rolls - the best way to have a salad: wrapped up in a little water-soaked skin and doused in some peanut sauce. And with all of that came an enormous sense of gratitude - that something so small could sustain beings so much larger, and clumsier, and non-photosynthesising as we are. Well, the garden is tended, the seedlings are small, but growing, and so we wait. And while we wait, here's what's blooming - or is about to bloom - in the back garden, in early November. Do click on the little pictures to yield larger ones:[gallery link="file" ids="171,169,168,167,165,164,160,159,157,110,112,161"]

We've been slow at getting the front sheltered garden going. There's a lot of hauling involved. But, it's coming along - this weekend will see to some work there.