Bright Ideas

After fencing, putting a pickup load of sterilized beef manure on the garden, marking new rows, tilling, and eventually planting, we waited for green plants to shoot up. We waited, and waited. Volunteer lettuce was first up and first garden crop we harvested. The green and yellow beans came up; they have big leaves and looked impressive. The corn came up. It’s short and already has ears; we just hope they fill out.

We didn’t have anything to put in our salads then, so we started using sliced water chestnuts. When we had radishes, they went in our salads for awhile. We’re back with water chestn...