I wrote this on August 16th. Somehow it never posted.
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| Turtle Heads |
Isn't it amazing how much can change in the garden in two weeks! When I left, there was order and predictability in our design. The borders were smooth, the weeds contained and the Cherokee Purple about to explode. In the time that I was gone - 60 Cherokee tomatoes ripened, and the plants settled into complacency, the turtle heads bloomed, the hanging baskets went dormant and then began to happily flower again The borders became memories, with only a hint of definition, the lilies disappeared under a riot of Trillium, and any place we gave up and let the morning glory grow, is now in impenetrable barrier. Two weeks!
I was also happy to see that the Shasta Daisy was having another flowering, as was the coreopsis. The beans are finally going into flower. I was thinking we were going to have this hefty tee-pee of green vines and nothing to show for it. However, these beans are all heirloom varieties, and I guess they just do their thing in their time. I'm so looking forward to fresh beans!
My first action once I get the luggage in the door was to go to the garden and find the most perfect Japanese Black Trifele out there. That variety is doing so well this year. We have double or triple the output we expected, and the fruit is much larger than we have seen previously. So, I brought in this still warm tomato and made a sandwich on oatmeal bread with some thin slices of feta. Not very conventional, I know, but it was Heaven! (It's a bad thing when one misses garden produce more than one's spouse. But he understands.)
We made a huge batch of pesto yesterday morning - our first attempt. It turned out quite well. We froze some of it. We then added spinach to the mixture and used it on a Pasta, Pea, and Pine Nut Salad. That was a Food Network, Ina Garten recipe - http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/pasta-pesto-and-peas-recipe2/index.html . I would certainly recommend it. If you don't like the flavor of pine nuts (I'm not a fan unless they are super-fresh) then leave them out - they really don't add much. You also might want to assess how much garlic to use. She calls for 9 cloves - we used two. I'm not a great lover of garlic (unlike it rest of the world, it seems) and two was more than plenty. This recipe makes enough to feed fifteen - so halving it might be a good idea.
We took this to a neighborhood gathering and it disappeared pretty quickly. Nothing like fresh basil in the hot summer.
It's good to be home.
