Well, it's cottage season again here in Canada! With the water finally in, we spend most weekends up at the bf's family cottage, where we have a rather large and impressive garden happening (if I do say so myself!). This past weekend, however, was a rather miserable weekend to be lakeside, with howling winds (see picture) and unseasonably cold temperatures. It was not a comfortable weekend. Although, with the wood stove going almost constantly, it wasn't too bad.

We've had an early start to our garden this year! We experimented with greenhouses this spring, and set a couple of the long Lee Valley ones up about for about two weeks before we actually planted anything. We suspect that this heated the ground up sufficiently to give our plants a great head start on the growing season. By the time we took the plastic coverings off (last week, I think it was) our tomato seedlings already had flower buds! This weekend we saw open tomoto flowers, so I'm actually hoping to see some tiny new tomatoes starting next weekend.

Check out this picture of our Romaine Lettuce... I just can't get over how well this stuff is doing! Might be hard to tell from the photograph, but those leaves are bigger than my hand! Plus, this romaine keeps really well in the fridge... we've had some in ours for over a week and it's still in great shape -- makes great salads, too... nice and crispy, and not bitter at all. We've actually decided not to bother with planting leaf lettuce anymore and are just doing the romaine now because of how well it grows and how well it keeps.

Now, if you thought the lettuce was impressive, you have got to check out our pears! I am SO excited about this. This picture is from our Flemish Beauty pear tree. We planted the sapling two years ago and this is the first year that we've gotten flowers and FRUIT! Is this not just the cutest little thing you've ever seen? It's a tiny little brand-new pear, about an inch and half long. It should grow to be about the size of the ones you see in grocery stores by the time it's ready to be picked. We originally had seven pears on this little tree, but the tree has dropped all but two (apparently this is normal for fruit trees... they select the strongest ones and drop the others). Even with two tiny pears, though, I am very excited about this tree and can't wait to see how these fruits turn out! :-)