the first bountiful harvest

I am blessed with peas this year.

I did my first major harvest today; I've been picking a pod here, a leaf there for salad, but I hadn't picked anything in bulk yet. I knew there were peas out there that were starting to get a bit too big, so it was now or never. After a gentle morning rain, much appreciated, I went out and picked two gallons of sugar snap peas, weighing in over ten pounds.

I'm glad these are sugar snaps and not pod peas. That would be a lot of shelling to do for maybe one or two meals of peas.

I also picked a daikon radish that was starting to push itself out of the ground. These have a mildly spicy flavor and are great raw, in salads, or in stir fry. This is the first year I've planted them, and they seem to do very well.

And, here's the "garden art" of the day. I'm really starting to like Swiss chard, which was also a new vegetable for me this year. This is the "bright lights" variety. I planted another variety from seed, Fordhook I think, but it wasn't germinating very well so I got these transplants from the garden center. Then the seeds started to sprout under cover of these big leaves.

The Hermit and I were drinking our coffee in the screen house this morning as it was starting to rain. He remarked that plants seem to respond better to rain than they do to being watered, and I agreed. I wonder why that is? Perhaps the barometric pressure changes right before a rainfall stimulate the stomata in the leaves to open up more and be receptive to the rain? I don't know. I may have a degree in biology, but there is so much I do not know.