They don’t call it Merveille des Quatre Saisons for nothing. The lettuce variety, a pre-1885 French heirloom, according to the seed catalogs, can handle just about anything the weather gods throw at it. This gorgeous head of “marvel of four seasons” lettuce, see above, is one of half a dozen that sprouted from lettuce stumps that I had left for dead in my garden last fall. I didn’t notice them until early this spring when they started sprouting and then formed characteristic rosettes of loosely folded ruby-tinged green leaves.
Meanwhile, my new spring crops-including some Merveille des Quatre Saisons, several spinach varieties, and other greens-which I started in the greenhouse and moved into garden in mid-March, are thriving outside, especially those that I kept under a row cover on hoops. They’ve dodge all of the hazards the cruel world could throw at it so far, including some light freezes and tree-toppling wind storms.
A groundhog, to be sure, could make short work of them all, and one recently showed up, happily grazing through my cilantro crop. I don’t think it’s the same one that slowly but surely ate its way through my garden last year. That groundhog (which I caught and released, though perhaps not far enough away-less than a mile from here) didn’t like cilantro. This groundhog clearly favored it over eight or ten other nearby choices. It’s going to be one of his last meals in my garden, if I can help it. I’m borrowing a trap and setting it ASAP.
yielded a continuous harvest of spinach clippings since March. The plants have been taking turns bolting for the last month or so. A few of the spinach plants have still barely begun to bolt. I clip them as soon as they start to shoot up, before they turn woody, when they’re still tender and sweet. Guess I’m going to have to make an extra-spinachy batch of my favorite curry, and use my other old favorite spinach recipes that I’ve posted on my 
