Our little farmer’s market is on Wednesday evening and tonight I didn’t buy flowers, because I finally have enough things blooming in my own yard that I can fill the vase under my grandmother’s portrait myself. However, I did buy green beans (because the caterpillars got my bean plants before they could get off the ground), and new potatoes (which I think I’ll plant next year) and gorgeous, fragrant fresh garlic. So tonight’s dinner is pasta with the first zucchini from my garden, with hot pepper flakes, fresh garlic, and basil and mint from the garden.I don’t know how I’m…
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Breakfast of Champions The garden is in full swing — no tomatoes yet, but plenty of greens. Yesterday I harvested chard, radishes, carrots (about 4), gai lan (chinese broccoli — like broccoli raab but the chinese version) and a lot a lot of lettuce. It’s all lettuce all the time here right now. I bought a Foodsaver vacuum sealer the other day and so I spent much of yesterday morning washing, blanching and freezing veggies. My next big home purchase is going to be a freezer, but I’m waiting for the used appliance store on the other side of my…
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Summer Snowstorm Not here, but over in Yellowstone and up on Beartooth Pass … the pass is closed because they got 18 inches over the last two days. Glad I didn’t take the Wall O’Waters off the tomatoes … it’s just been gloomy and rainy down here, which is a mixed blessing. The plants love the rain, but it’s been so cold that the beans and zucchini are having a hard time getting off the ground. It’s supposed to warm up later this week. Not much happening in the garden right now. The lettuce is coming up really well, as…
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This question was posed to my friend Wendy when she was in China adopting the darling Scott. Wendy had been describing something to one of her Chinese hosts about eating in America, and this woman just couldn’t believe that we bought fish dead in the grocery store. Who knows what you’re getting if you can’t see the whole fish — how can you tell how fresh it is if you can’t see the eyes or the gills? Better to buy your fish live, out of a tank, like sensible people, no? I got thinking of this because my garden is…
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Breakfast of Champions Not to sound like an Alice Waters clone, but my breakfast these past few days has been local farm eggs (1 yolk, 2 whites, extra yolk makes dog very happy — it’s good to share), scrambled with some arugula out of my garden and eaten over toast with a little goat cheese crumbled on top. It’s so good that yesterday, when I was out of eggs, I found myself cranky that the local natural foods store (which always makes me grumpy because they seem way more concerned with supplements than with food — eat real food people!)…
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Rhubarb My Rhubarb Not only did I get a vigorous rhubarb patch when I bought this house, I got a rhubarb patch with history. Apparently, mine is patch semi-famous in the neighborhood for its sweetness. Several people have pointed out my rhubarb patch and commented on this. But the true defender of the rhubarb is Betty, my 80-year old neighbor who comes running out of her house, screeching with alarm should anyone stray too near the precious rhubarb. Apparently, Betty has been coveting my rhubarb for years, and two or three years ago when the dear departed Mrs. Warnick was…
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Blooming Lilacs and a Runny Nose I have fifteen-foot-tall lilac bushes running down one side of my property line, and they’re gloriously in bloom this morning. It’s not eight yet, and the temperature is a balmy, sitting-on-the-porch-in-shirtsleeves sixty degrees. The sun is shining. The grackles are searching for bugs in the grass by the street. The puppy is lounging on the wicker sofa next to me. I love my life. Yesterday, I put the garden in. Such an old-fashioned phrase. I planted five varieties of tomatoes, and put their protective green wall-o-water hats on them. Since I started them indoors…
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Snow on the Lilacs Good thing I didn’t plant the tomatoes on Friday, when the sun was shining, when it was 70 degrees and my apple trees were blooming and the lilacs were this close to opening. Good thing because today it’s snowing. Snowing like winter, big fat wet flakes falling outside my window, two inches on the lawn, and the poor lilacs are all bent over from the load. Everything will be fine, this is expected, it’s Montana after all, and although the official last frost date was yesterday, the 17th, everyone knows that if you put your tomatoes…
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Another Day, Another Garden Bed Woke up this morning to sunshine, which was welcome. Although come to think of it, yesterday was sunny, it was just intermittently snowing and hailing through the sunshine. But this morning, blue skies and happy dogs. A good way to start a Sunday. Planted one more raised bed today. The plastic sheeting over the raised beds seems to be working quite well. This morning when I went to shake the puddles off the two existing beds, I discovered they’d frozen overnight. But underneath, carrots and arugula are sprouting, and the shaky-looking transplants I put in…
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A Perfect Rain We’ve had two days of perfect spring rain. No downpours, just soft, soaking perfect rain. For those of you who don’t live in the West, it’s important to remember that we only get 14.5 inches per year, on average, and the past couple of years we haven’t even gotten that, so the general mood is one of deep relief and nascent hope for a good season this year. Here on my little backyard farm, the pathetic-looking chard and parsley plants I transplanted on Monday are looking good. They like real dirt. They like soft rain. They’re looking…