I don’t know about you, but weeks that start with a holiday always seem to fly. Tuesday feels like Monday, Wednesday feels like Tuesday, and right when you think you’ve finally got yourself straightened out, it’s Friday.  

 

 

My week was filled with bugs. I’ve been battling with leaf miners in my spinach for several weeks now. And it seems as though every leaf I turn over has a family of aphids on the underside. I finally had enough and ordered around six hundred live ladybugs. So far, the ladybugs are happy to lounge in the sunshine on my lettuce while aphids crawl around nearby.

 

 

As the plants grow, I’m dreaming about all of the vegetable dishes I’ll be enjoying soon, like that first tomato sandwich or the first zucchini tossed on the grill. Of course, my favorite thing to make with the produce from my garden is always ratatouille. 

I love all the different veggies used in ratatouille to create a marvelously flavored dish that’s much more than the sum of its parts. 
 

 

As you know, we’ve been encouraging readers to send in photos of their gardens. This week is our first week featuring a reader garden.

 

We want to thank Ed M. from Northeast Missouri for sending in this fantastic photo of his impressive container garden setup. 

Ed’s setup makes great use of space and easy-to-find materials. 

 

If you’d like the chance to have your garden featured in our newsletter, send us a photo or two. 

 

We’ve got some exciting news here at Rural Sprout. We’re growing! This week we welcomed author Matthew Olshan to our team. Keep an eye on the website for his work and an interview here in the newsletter soon.