Yesterday we made a trip down to Marin to go to the Farmer’s Market, which we try to do at least once a month. (oh and Katrina, even with your notice, we of course arrived without our own bags at Bring Your Own Bag day!) As we were strolling through the middle aisle I realized that Tyler Florence, his wife and young son were walking right towards us! I had heard that he had moved somewhere around here. Anyway, we were trying to play it off very cool, as though, ‘oh yeah, that’s just Tyler Florence shopping at our market, no biggie’. But of course as soon he passed we turned right around like gaping fans and looked as he walked by. Poor guy, just trying to shop with his family and he’s got people like us staring at him. Over the years we’ve watched almost all of his shows but Tyler’s Ultimate is my favorite. My mouth is always watering at the end of the show at whatever he’s just created and I always think, I have to download that recipe. He’s a great food stylist and his lighting guru is a master. And it was nice to see him just walking around with his family taking in a lovely Sunday at the market. His son looked just a bit younger than our youngest and I smiled as I passed him later struggling to keep his son from wiggling out of his stroller….a situation I deal with daily. It made him seem like a real and genuine person. From the look of his website it looks like he’s going to open a place in Mill Valley.

So, onto the garden. I’ve been so overwhelmed with all that has gone on in it. April is always full of crazy growth, and new plantings so it’s hard to keep up. So this week, I’ll be starting from the left and moving, as the week goes, over to the right of the yard. Scott constructed some quickie, pell-mell sort of raised beds to house our cold weather spring crop and they look very happy there.

We are trying collard greens for the first time, planted with some very slow growing peas, cilantro and parsley.

Next to that is a bed of broccoli, cauliflower and raddiccio hidden in the middle, contained by our snail guards. I think a few carrot seeds were sprinkled in there last week, but none have come up yet.

And next to that bed, is this bed of bok choy. It’s our first year growing that too and we are enjoying having it young. You know how fiberous it can be when it’s fully mature—chew, chew chew.

Behind all of those we have a bed of radishes, remember when they were so tiny? Radishes grow quick. In fact at the begining of October of 2006 one of our neighbors who runs the Slow Food Movement in town was running for city council. He stopped by our house campaigning and gave us a package of radish seeds and told me, “plant these today and by the time you are ready to eat them, you’ll remember me and hopefully vote for me on November 7th.” Sorry to report that he didn’t win the election, but I certainly voted for him.

Next to the radishes is our lettuce and raddiccio patch. We’re growing a bunch of different lettuces there and since the chickens have been relegaded to the cottage yard (note to self: chickens love lettuce), they are all growing beautifully.

And to cap off the left side of the garden, our artichokes. We aren’t getting that many this year. In fact it seems like artichoke prices are through the roof this spring. One sign at the farmer’s market this year read ‘$4/artichoke’! Has anyone read anything about the artichoke crop this year?

So that is the state of affairs for the left side of the yard, next up, the center plot.