I Walked Cat-footed
Checking on the garden after the violent storms of the evening, my feet lifted high in the soaked grass.
We did not sustain much damage from the gusts of wind and rain, only the wooden ladder trellis fallen down and the patio furniture skidded sideways. Every surface is littered with leaves, twigs, birch catkins which make a terrific mess every year anyway, storm or no storm. The daintiest flowers are lifting their crepe faces again, even the primroses that I thought were weeds this spring. I pulled out most of them before I realized they were not weeds after all.
There are a few asparagus stalks still worth harvesting, and I eat them fresh while I walk. They taste exactly like peas, delicate and crisp. There is lettuce, too. So much lettuce! A non-gardening friend once asked me why I always plant extra stuff. Why not just plant exactly what we will need? I didn’t even know what to say to that. Garden math is complicated. Greenhouses sell things in four packs, or six. If you want different varieties, you buy a pack of each and find space for them. Then there are the variables: you don’t know when you put seeds into the ground whether this will be the year of rabbits or slugs or drought or maybe nothing bad will happen and you will be swimming in lettuce in June. My children have been avoiding the pretty rose-freckled lettuce in the fridge, and I didn’t know why until they said it looks like it is going bad. Well, so it does, now that I look at it from their perspective. It’s all good, though, and I eat lettuce nearly every meal. My mom used to smear a bit of peanut butter on lettuce for us as kids. I went one better and smeared peanut butter on my sourdough toast for breakfast, then piled on the lettuce.
At the farmer’s market on Saturday, I saw mounds and heaps of lettuce and little else. I really wanted to buy something from the hard-working farmer, so I bought a bag of basil for three dollars. My many basil plants are still too small to harvest, and having a whole bag full gave me that much pleasure, just sniffing it on the way home. Then I made pesto with garlic scapes. It is always surprising to me how much more intense and delightful the vegetables are when they are not shipped from California or grown hydroponically. I am grateful for those in the wintertime, but this! This is the time to revel in flavors. I picked four cucumbers this morning from the bush I paid big bucks for because it was already bearing fruit on its own little trellis at the greenhouse. To date I have probably picked about five dollars worth of cucumbers, and gotten about ten dollars worth of satisfaction out of having them growing right outside my door, so it’s been a fine investment. I also sprang for a mature tomato plant in a large pot with a cage and all. Never have I done this before, but this year I felt like I can’t wait until the middle of August for tomatoes, so here I am, daily checking if the tomatoes are ripening. They are supposed to be purple and they are slllooow.
My feet have been cold for hours. I finally broke down and put on socks, wrapped them in a blanket, closed the windows. I even turned on the heat for a few minutes because it is downright chilly. That’s what I love about our weather. It is never boring. The only thing I would change about our summers is that they should last six months instead of winter (yes, we do have six months of winter). I planted sweet potatoes after our frost free date, but they may actually not have enough time to grow to maturity. Oh well, that’s what the south is for.
Last week I hauled old hay home from the obliging farmer up the road. After I mulched the entire garden with it, the plants sprang into action. Possibly it helped that we got some rain and hot days, as well. Now I just stand back and watch things grow, and pull rogue weeds, and harvest lettuce.
Oh, I almost forgot about the garlic scapes. Last year I experimented with making garlic salt out of scapes. It worked beautifully, and I even took pictures to show you how to do it, but I never posted them. So here are some photos from last year to inspire you to do something with those scapes besides stir fry them.
This is where I forgot to finish my photo journey to garlic salt, but you can read more details about the process here. I do remember that I ran it through the blender again once it was dried in the oven, so that it would be fine enough to put into a shaker bottle. I was cooking low-FOD-MAP last year, and this was a great way to have garlic flavored food. I made enough garlic salt to last over a year, and it was cheap!
We celebrated Olivia’s graduation last week. She had completed her high school credits in three years. but wanted to get dual credits at a local college before she graduates high school, so we didn’t make her graduation official until this year. Did you know that high school students can do college courses with much less expense, and have it count for both high school and college? Yeah, pretty neat. Of course, it was mostly gen-ed courses that were available online, but it worked out well for her. It also made a super-busy year for her, because she was working part-time. It feels like we can do whatever springs to mind, with no school deadlines. Ahh. Summer.
How is it going for you? Have you been picking green things and eating them on the way to the house? You should maybe try it! (Not garlic scapes though.)