Spring Bounty

The spring has been good to our garden. The early spinach we planted last fall wintered over nicely and we've been eating it for a month now. Onions are in and thriving, garlic is nearly two feet tall now. My beans (special Rancho Gordo beans that I saved from the bags of beans we loved best) are doing well and are nearly ready to be trellised.

But most impressive right now is the 100 feet of spinach ready to be harvested, washed, blanched, bagged and frozen. This seemed like a good idea in April. Ralph and I decided to plant a whole bed of spinach in mid April in the hopes we'd be able to harvest it before the tomatoes went in. Well the tomatoes are sitting in the grass next to the garage, ready to go in. And I'm looking at a sink full of spinach, with more on the counter in a big bushel basket and wondering, how exactly do you freeze spinach? There is, incidentally, more in the garden still waiting to be harvested.
Oh my.

Maybe not exactly the smartest time to figure it out, but very much my style, and I've pulled out the Ball Blue Book in hopes of some inspiration. The mini snails that we've been finding in the spinach are crawling out of the sink, headed for dry ground. And I'm here, procrastinating on the blanching and bagging part of the deal.

But I'm definitely enjoying the thought of spinach omelets with mushrooms, spinach pizza, sauteed spinach with lemon, garlic, and red pepper flakes, spinach salad, and green goddess dressing colored with spinach.

So best get on with it, eh?