July 28, 2021
Our table gardens are, for the
most part, doing quite well this year. We’ve already eaten some tomatoes, and
my, goodness, the green beans are so vibrant and good! I continue to be amazed
at how well everything seems to be growing.
Last year, you may recall, we
planted some Swiss Chard, but it didn’t do well. Swiss Chard is a leafy green,
which resembles spinach in that it cooks down substantially, and it’s eaten the
same way as you’d eat cooked spinach. In the Ashbury household that translates
to simmering it, and then adding a bit of butter, and then salt. I also add
vinegar to my helping, but David doesn’t. There are actually two other green
veggies that I grew up putting vinegar on—cooked cabbage, and Brussels sprouts.
And sometimes, I’ll relive my
childhood and put some vinegar on crispy, pan-fried potatoes, but that’s
another story.
This year, we again planted
some Swiss chard in one of the table gardens, and those plants began to die,
just like last year. After some research we determined that the garden wasn’t
draining well enough for the chard, so we took out the few plants we had, bought
4 more, and put them all in window boxes and hanging pots that we had in
storage.
That proved to work. We’ve
already had a small meal of that wonderful leafy goodness. It really is one of
my favorite veggies. We’ll have some more within the next couple of weeks. I’m
thinking of serving it a different way—simmered rather than sauteed, then
chopped up and added to mashed potatoes. My friend’s mother used to serve
spinach that way, because it was the only way her kids would eat it. So I’m
going to try that just because I love both chard and potatoes. I predict there
will be no vinegar involved in that meal.
We’ve also enjoyed one feeding
of the green beans. But in the last couple of weeks, we had a fair bit of rain,
and then some good sun. This resulted in a lot of beans being ready at
the same time, so last Friday, David decided he would pick all of them. It was
a good idea, because we don’t want them getting old, and we do want more green
bean production. Our experience is that as long as you keep picking those green
beans, the plants will keep producing them for you to pick.
David really enjoyed the task,
as it was an affirmation of his hard work. He brought me that good-sized bowl,
and I decided, since we wouldn’t be eating them immediately, to freeze them
instead. It didn’t take long to process the beans, and we ended up with two meals
worth in the freezer.
We’ve also visited our local
farmer and purchased our first “dozen” ears of corn. The word dozen is in
quotation marks because the man never gives us exactly 12 ears, it’s usually
anywhere from 13 to 16, depending.
A very quick aside, here: For
the best corn on the cob, have the water boiling with a dash of sugar, never
salt (salt turns the corn’s natural sugar to starch); put the ears in the boiling
water and as soon as it comes back to the boil count down 3 minutes only, and
it will be wonderfully sweet and good to eat. You’re welcome
On this first visit to our local
farmer, when David told him to keep the change, the man put another ear in the
bag. We cooked up the entire 14 ears, and we ate 3 between us. The rest of the
corn was stripped off the ears, then bagged in one cup allotments, and placed in
the freezer. That method of freezing corn works quite well for us. I can tell
you that we ate the last of the corn that, in September of 2019 we froze that
way, in mid-January of 2021. And it tasted as fresh as it had when we froze it.
Those three veggies that we’re
growing—tomatoes, green beans, and Swiss Chard—make up the bulk of what we’ve planted
this year. The green peppers didn’t do well last year, and they don’t usually
for us, so we passed. The squash? Well, that’s a weird thing, let me tell you.
According to David, our problem is that we have all male plants. Maybe he’s
right; maybe he’s not. I have chosen to accept his word on the subject and
leave it at that.
We will, however, be having a
few cucumbers, provided all the flowers out there produce the veggie. So that’s
good.
Many of you know from your own
experience that there’s nothing better than homegrown, and homemade. Therefore,
for some of the vegetables we don’t grow ourselves, we’re thinking of making a
run to the farmers’ market closer to the fall, so that we can get a few veggies
to process for the freezer—since our new freezer is, after all, more than twice
the size of our old one.
And it may not surprise anyone
when I add this codicil to that plan: provided, of course, that we don’t fill
the freezer before then.
Trust me, that’s more than
possible.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
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