salad fixings (or fixins)

this year i'm growing radishes for the first time. they are incredibly easy to grow. i sowed them directly into the garden about 6 weeks ago, and now they are big enough to harvest. the variety that i have is called 'watermelon radish' (thanks for the recommendation liz!). as you can see the color is the inverse of regular radishes.  they have a wonderfully spicy flavor - perfect for adding another dimension to salad.

i also have lots of lettuce and arugula ready to be thrown into a salad.  i brought back some arugula seed packets from my trip to italy last fall.  it's quite tasty and seems to have more of a bite to it than the arugula i get here at the grocery store.  i did initially have a problem with slugs eating the lettuce and arugula plants. i had heard that slugs can't resist beer, so i strategically placed some containers of beer around the plants. i was amazed how many slugs drowned themselves in the beer within a day or so.

swiss chard that wintered over in my garden