Plants and Produce for Sale on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday & Friday: 2 to 5 and Saturday: 10 to 3

Happy Earth Day! Today marks the 48th anniversary of Earth Day when more than 20 million people participated throughout the country to protest the negative impacts of 150 years of industrial development. People were brought out into the spring sunshine for peaceful demonstrations in favor of environmental reform.

Earth Day has now reached into its current status as the largest secular observance in the world, celebrated by more than a billion people every year in over 192 countries to continue to honor the achievements of the environmental movement and raise awareness of the need to protect Earth’s natural resources for future generations.

One great way to celebrate Earth Day and reduce our overall carbon footprint is to start planning your vegetable and flower garden now.

Plants reduce carbon dioxide in the air, produce oxygen and help promote a healthy lifestyle.

Whether you plant vegetables in a backyard garden, maintain a patio herb collection, or grow tomatoes in containers, you’ll be making strides toward a healthier planet and a healthier you.

Plus, by growing what you eat, you will always know what you are feeding your family. What you harvest is packed full of nutrients because you have picked it at its prime.

Plants

We will be open Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 2 to 5 and Saturday from 10 to 3 this coming week for purchasing plant “starts”. This is our first planting of many things and if you are not quite ready, don’t worry. We do several plantings of most items and more things will come online as the season progresses. If you have specific questions about a specific variety, please email Hattie.

Tomatoes, Vegetables & Peppers

Hattie’s Garden has a variety of quality vegetable plants for the home gardener.

• Tomatoes — Beautiful selection of Heirloom, Hybrid and Cherry tomato varieties.
• Squash — Wonderful summer squash includes Patty Pan, Yellow Squash and Zucchini.
• Lettuce — ‘Cut-and-Come-Again’ Allstar Gourmet Lettuce Mix (includes green oakleaf, red oakleaf, green romaine, red romaine, lollo rossa, and red leaf lettuce) and several varieties of head lettuce starts are available.
• Swiss Chard — Two varieties are available: delicious Fordhook and stunning Bright Lights.
• Peppers — Gastronomically indispensable hot pepper plants and and a good selection of sweet pepper plants are ready.

Herbs

Herbs as a group are relatively easy to grow and can be very rewarding. They are well suited for planting in the ground, or maintaining in containers close to the kitchen, on the patio, on the back-porch steps, or even on the kitchen windowsill. Remember though, sun is essential for their growth and maintenance. Most of our culinary herbs come from the Mediterranean and other sun-drenched regions, so they will need a place where the sun shines at least eight hours a day. This week we will have, but not limited to:

• Bouquet Dill — Delightful herb with many culinary uses.
• Calypso Cilantro — Excellent eating quality and lots of leaves on this variety.
• ‘Gigante d’Italia’ Parsley — A flat Italian parsley with very big, deep green shiny leaves with an exceptionally mellow and sweet fuller flavor than standard plain parsley.
• Curly ‘Krausa’ Parsley — The nicest curly parsley I have grown, plants easily grow a foot tall, giving you large bunches for repeated cuttings.
• 12″ Oval Herb Planters — with Chives, Parsley, Oregano, Lemon Thyme, and Tricolor Sage.

Flowers

Beautiful nasturtiums will be available in large and small pots. Flowers (and leaves) are edible and taste similar to watercress, add them to salad for a punch of color.

Produce

This week we are harvesting radishes, loose leaf lettuce and mesclun.

Yours in the Garden and grateful for this Earth,