Busy, as always

Wow..... the week has flown by!  I've been trying to sit my butt down at this computer and write about what's been going on, and feeling guilty that I haven't.  I planted all the rest of the tomatoes and peppers, filled out that third row in the second garden with carrots, sage, and lettuce; plotted out the rest of garden # 2, hoed the radishes and beans, and planted more lettuce in the center of the radish rings under the bean teepees.  There's probably more, I just can't remember right now.  Oh, yeah, I moved a couple of wheelbarrows full of rocks to the edge of the garden to mark the rows because I needed a visual orientation point at each end -  fifty feet is a long way for me to just "eyeball" a straight line.  I'm sure I'm forgetting other things, too.  In addition to this, I am taking a Permaculture Design certification class through the Vermont Wilderness School and was in class from 9 am. to 5:30 pm (or a little later) on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  Before classes started, I had visions of coming home and going out to the garden ~ NOT!!  OMG!  I was so exhausted by the end of the weekend that I went to bed at 8:00pm on Sunday!  That was after showing up an hour late to a neighborhood pot-luck (they knew I was going to be late and very graciously said to come, anyway) and having to choose to not go with everyone to a dance at the town hall (Cajun dance lessons, and I had to miss it! Sob!  Snif!) because I was so tired I couldn't think straight by the time I'd finished dinner.
We actually got to eat some of these amazing heirloom radishes this week.  I had to thin them because they were getting big enough to crowd themselves, so we had them with our salad with dinner one night:

The white ones at the top of the pic are my favorite:  Philadelphia White Box.  It's a wonderful, mild radish.  According to what I've been able to find about them,  the word "box" in the name refers to them being grown in cold frames as early as the 1890's.  Next in my order of preference would be the ones in the bottom left of the photo, French Breakfast.  It's sort of in the middle of the three, in terms of 'bite'.  Seed Savers Exchange (our source) says, "A very early market garden radish of French origin.  Listed by James J. H. Gregory of Marblehead, Massachusetts in 1875." and here's a nice article on them from the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/home_garden/the-french-breakfast-radish-makes-a-handy-snack/2011/04/12/AF6E8uBE_story.html .  The last one in the picture, the long one on the right, is the Cincinnati Market radish.  In my opinion, they have the sharpest "bite" of all three varieties.  Still good, mind you, just more 'radish-y' than the other two and especially more so than the Philadelphia White Box.  Seed Savers Exchange says this about the Cincinnati Market radish:  "(aka Long Scarlet) Heirloom described in Vilmorin’s The Vegetable Garden (1885); now becoming scarce. Deep red radishes are 6" long and tapered.".  I think the thing I love best about these is that they are an heirloom that is becoming scarce and, that just by growing them and taking them to the farmer's market (when we have enough produce to go), we will be helping to preserve them in the gene pool and raise awareness about them.  Maybe that sounds a little overblown but, really, that's why we're growing the heirlooms.
Oh!  And, did you know that you can cook radishes?  I sure didn't.  Guess I've been living an uninformed life, folks, because I came across several references for cooked radishes, especially sliced and sauteed in butter (mmmmmmm..... I love butter!).  But then I found this:  http://nymag.com/restaurants/recipes/inseason/56730/.  It's a recipe for Butter Poached Radishes and it sounds sublime.  It makes me wish I was growing tarragon this year.  Next year..... definitely next year.