Warmer weather is good for our tomatoes and peppers, but brings our the worst in our spinanch, lettuce and cilantro — BOLT. This four letter word makes me cringe with the memory of bitter greens and disappointing salads. No amount of dressing can disguise greens gone wrong.

What is bolt? Basically, our garden greens have two jobs. In the spring, lettuce grows leaves and roots to make and store energy. In the summer, lettuce uses this stored energy to produce flowers and seeds. Unseasonably warm temperatures can trigger this change prematurely. It doesn’t matter if your lettuce has 40 leaves or four. Heat means that it is time to reproduce. The plant grows a stalk of flowers and sends a bitter-tasting chemical to the leaves as a deterrent to herbivores. One bite and you’ll never interrupt its reproductive cycle again.

Three years ago, the BF and I visited family over Memorial Day weekend. It was unseasonably warm throughout the Midwest. When we returned to the Twin Cities, I had a garden full of tiny spinach and tiny flowers. My greens’ growing season was over before I could even make a salad. I was bummed.

There’s not much you can do about bolt but cross you fingers. If you planted your greens in containers, you could move them to the shade. If you planted greens in your garden, you could mulch and water. There are bolt resistant varieties of spinach, lettuce and cilantro, but I haven’t had much luck.

How do you beat bolt?

April 15 is not just Tax Day, it’s the first planting date for our cool season veggies.

Love lettuce? Ready for radishes? If you want to get your hands dirty, now is the perfect time to sow your greens, snap peas, onions and more. Many root veggies can also be planted outdoors. Carrots and beets actually grow best in the spring and the fall. For a complete listing of cool season veggies, check out this handy chart from the University of Minnesota Extension Service.

Not ready to work in your garden? Now is the perfect time to clean your containers and refill them with new potting soil. Many cool season veggies love life in a container. If you plant now, you’ll have a great harvest of baby field greens before it’s time to plant your peppers in the ground. If you need a little instant gratification, pansies also like the cold and can add a pop of spring color to your patio.

Snap peas are my favorite cool season veggie. I can never eat enough of these sweet treats. Luckily, it is super easy to grow snap peas in a container. As you can see from the photo, an unused tomato cage and twine make a great impromptu trellis. Buried in the bottom of the pot, the stake adds a little vertical lift.

What cool season veggies are a must-have in your garden? Do you plant slowly over the growing season or do you wait until June 1 to get all your veggies in the ground at once?

You’ve had a tea party, sent an army of Red Coats packing, and signed your John Hancock to the crib sheet of modern day democracy. What’s left for a patriot to do? Why, eat some fennel — of course!

Fourth of July is not only a celebration of our independence from The Crown, but a summer celebration of our gardening successes. No grilled meat/meat-alternatives would be complete with out a treat from the garden.

This year, I’m serving up my greens, parsley, fennel and maybe a few strawberries (keep your fingers crossed) in super-food super-salad. I’ve earmarked some scapes for a little saute. There’s also three kinds of mint for mojitos (I’m skipping the Brandy Alexanders this year… they go down a little too fast and smooth).

However you choose to celebrate this three day weekend, take a moment to admire all your hard work. Your digging, planting and mulching has made something amazing. And, tomato time is right around the corner!

Happy Fourth of July!

The first veggie sprouts have peeked through the soil! If my neighbors would’ve looked out their window at 7 a.m., they would’ve gotten a glimpse of a Greengirl dressed in her clogs, PJs and boyfriend’s overcoat crouching in the dirt with her point-and-shoot. The event was not worthy of a NatGeo special, but it was definitely a Kodak moment.

Hooray for greens! Hooray for radishes!

Did you plant any cool season crops? What do you have coming up?

Didja know that Gandhi’s favorite food is growing in your own backyard? No, it’s not creeping charlie or dandelions, though both are edible. (Creeping charlie is a member of the mint family, surprised?) I’m talking about purslane, a little leafy succulent plant that sprouts between your patio bricks and cracks in your driveway.

My path to purslane appreciation started this spring. Little red and green sprouts had taken over the one of my garden beds. As I planted my snap peas, I thought I had pulled them all up. But I was wrong, so wrong. The little succulents multiplied faster than crab grass. A week later, I had twice as many sprouts and twice as much weeding to do.

Later in the spring, my girl crush, Lynne Rossetto Casper interviewed botany professor Dr. Peter Gail, an advocate of eating weeds. During the depression, his family was extremely poor. A concerned neighbor showed his mother how to prepare purslane. He and his siblings would harvest this nutrient-rich weed for dinner. (A 1986 study showed that purslane is high in Omega-3’s, Vitamin C and Vitamin B.) When Lynne said it tasted like spinach, my ears perked up. I’m a big fan of greens, but despite my best efforts, my spinach always bolts before I can harvest more than a serving or two.

“Gee, I wish I had purslane in my backyard,” I remember thinking, “I should really Google that…”

I soon forgot about purslane, but purslane did not forget about me. It thrived on our patio. It sprung up alongside the driveway. It crept between the cracks in our sidewalk.

“Grrr… What is this stuff?” Brian growled as swept the patio tile for our 4th of July party.

“Dunno,” I shrugged, “Just throw it in the compost bin.”

Then, Sunday morning, I finally put two and two together. Brian was playing Super Paper Mario while I was looking for ideas for lunch in Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. As I flipped through the salad section, I was struck by a drawing of some greens. The plant looked really familiar… Purslane… Purslane… a succulent with slightly salty, slightly sour taste… popular in Asia… used like spinach during the Depression… Purslane…

I jumped off the couch and ran out to the patio. I bent down and pulled a few leaves from the stubborn succulent plant sticking out between the tiles. Purslane? I took a bite. The plant had slightly salty, slightly sour taste.

“Purslane!!! Whoo-hoo!!!”

I hopped online for a little insight and few recipes, and found a world of purslane enthusiasts. In fact, the only country not in love with purslane is the United States. Most of us Yanks treat it as weed, not an edible plant. However, in New York, purslane is currently the little darling of haute cuisine and widely available in farmers markets. Who knew?

Monday, I tossed some purslane in a Tupperware container with some snap peas, mustard greens, thai basil, cashews and leftover chicken. It was a fantastic lunch. I made my coworkers try it.

“This is a weed? This is tasty!”

I guess Gandhi really knew his greens.

Are your a fan of purslane? How do you prepare this persistent little plant? Are there other weeds that tickle your palette?

(Note: I once knew a new age herbalist in Portland, Maine. She believed that certain medicinal plants would appear when people need healing. I *did* notice a ton of it growing outside the Subway restaurant on Washington Avenue. It certainly gives new meeting to the slogan “Eat Fresh.”)