Right Under Our Noses

 Southern California seems to think it's summertime right now. We've had temps in the high
70°s—even up to 83° last Thursday. Everything in the yard is budding and blooming like crazy.

I felt like the Universe was throwing us a big old life lesson this weekend after I missed our bi-monthly produce pick-up because I was at a taping of The Bachelor. Mr. Wonderful and I belong to a Community-Supported Agriculture program in Silverlake CA, so every other week, we get to fill two grocery bags with a variety of gorgeous, locally-grown fruits and veggies. It's an awesome program and makes us feel like we're doing right by the people who farm in the area. 

 Mr. W bought this nifty heated seed sprouter to help us get a head start on our spring/summer
garden. I'm hoping we get loaded with homegrown goodies. And that we're in the country so
we can enjoy them...

When Friday's taping ran so late that I missed the pick-up window, we weren't only out $24, we were lacking a fridge full of produce to sustain us for the next couple of weeks. Huge bummer. Or so I thought until I walked into our backyard Saturday. As I looked around, I realized that I could find what I needed right under my nose.

 

 The carrots got a little stunted but what they lack in size, they make up for in quantity!
We roasted some last night and they were delicious.

I made multiple trips from the yard to the kitchen,  ending up with carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, broccoli leaves (which can be cooked like kale), spinach, tomatoes, and even a few spindly lettuce leaves.

 We left the cauliflower on the plant a little too long so it was flowering, but we roasted and ate it
anyway and it was just as good as it would have been in a tight white bunch.

 We'll pick this little guy before he goes to flower. Hopefully he'll get bigger between now and then!

 My sweet precious tomato plant has not let us down once since it sprouted. Every week—
even when the weather hasn't been great—he has delivered. I'm totally buying him an engagement ring.

 I was shocked when Mr. W told me we were already getting little grape babies.
Hopefully we'll be able to eat some this year. Last year they got a bad case of mold.
Good thing we weren't planning to make wine with 'em!

 We picked all the spinach to make room for new plants next weekend.
I think the earwigs will be very sad to see their salad bar go.

 Although its numbers have dwindled from the first planting, Mr. W's dream lemon orchard—grown
from contraband lemon seeds he smuggled back here after our honeymoon—continues to flourish.

 I hacked off and relocated this big mama agave after it gave birth to SEVEN offshoot babies. Mr. W
has had this plant since he moved to LA 17 years ago. To the best of my knowledge, it's his only
teenage child.

 We barely had enough pots for all the babies. I wonder if eventually, we'll try to harvest
some agave syrup to use in place of sugar.

 The bees are loving the early spring flower outbreak. I'm loving how good the local citrus trees and
jasmine plants smell. It almost makes up for the severed heads around town.

It's funny how sometimes everything you want is right under your nose. Or right outside your back door. You think you're lacking and then you look around and suddenly see you have everything you need, exactly where you are. 

I was already feeling grateful for this realization when the Universe hit us with another unexpected bounty. Saturday afternoon, an organization in the area was picking fruit from Hollywood Hills citrus trees to supply local food banks, and after they took oranges from our house, they came back with this lovely thank you basket filled with an assortment of treats from the neighborhood.  

Somehow I think that $24 we were out on Friday came back to us in our lucky abundance of backyard and neighborhood crops!