Crystal Kitten Begins Her New Season as Guard Cat

She's been out there for several years guarding the alstroalmerias and daffodils in the early Spring, then moving over to watch over the roses and lilies later on.

We've never had such fat parsley for such a long season. It still hasn't flowered so there's no end in sight.

Here come the first asparagus spears.

The first daffodils and callas.

The first lavender and rosemary flowers.

Rangpur lime leaves and broccoli rabe.

And all those beets. They've taken months to grow fat greens and roots. It's time to put more seeds in the ground right now as we pull these.

We've still got to wait a month or so to put out tomato plants. Each year Plotnik says he won't grow them again the next year, because there's only enough sun in the Saint Plotniko summer to grow little (but delicious) Sun Golds. But he will relent. He always relents.

Plotnik would love to have his corn patch back, but only if he could have it in Pennsylvania again. That Eastern corn -- there's nothing like it out here. Same with the tomatoes and apples. Everything else of ours is better than back East, but those three -- corn, tomatoes, apples -- and let's add pizza -- there's not a lot of point to doing it here. But we do. Of course we do, and Crystal keeps away the grizzly bears.