We had our first dinner from the garden for the season last night.

Yeah, that garden.

The weather finally cooperated while I found the time to get out there and work.  I’ve never not worked on it this late into the year.  Fun fact – here in Charlottesville, we had 28″ of snow this winter.  21″ of them were in March.  No wonder it’s April 7 and I am just now getting to my vegetable garden.

The garden is completely and totally overrun with weeds, but the results of a late fall planting was there –  half a row each of kale & arugula, as well as a leek.  That’s right, one leek.  I planted an entire packet of leek seeds and yielded exactly one.  Not bad, when you consider I did zero research on what growing conditions leeks prefer (sandier soil for starters) and I probably dug up that row a few times, because I do that.  I throw seeds in the ground just to see what they’ll do, then when they haven’t done anything a week later, I dig it up and throw more seeds in.  It’s amazing I get anything to grow half the time.  Gardening requires far more patience than I have.

I left the arugula for another day this week while harvesting all the kale and the single leek.
The resulting dinner was a leek & kale risotto with Everona Dairy‘s Herbs de Provence and a touch of lemon, although certain members of my family might say there was more than a touch of lemon.  We are at varying stages of allergy meds kicking in around here, with some of us thinking one’s touch of lemon is way too much and others not really able to taste said touch.  All of us however, agree that allergies are a sure sign of spring and we’ll take it.