Harvest

In the basket: 'Rolande' French filet (bush) beans, jewel-toned beets, 'Romeo' baby carrots, heirloom 'Italian Silver Rib' chard, 'Green Fingers' Persian baby cucumber, and 'Glacier' & 'Gold Nugget' tomatoes

I shall be growing all these varieties again next year.

And how have I been using the harvest? You may have noticed a paucity of new recipes on the blog recently. Well, I confess to spending more hours in the garden than kitchen. And eating more toasted tomato sandwiches than I probably should admit to. (Food jags aren't just for children.) Here's a hint about one of my other favourite summer meals. Recipe to follow soon.

Quinoa, Chickpea & Vegetables-of-the-Day Salad

Community garden update

Even though spring skipped it's turn and so far, the summer sun has been a shy friend if not a cool stranger, the crops are growing. Last Saturday evening, a few were glowing:

Tomato, 'Glacier'

Pepper, 'Alma Paprika'

Eggplant, 'Rosa Bianca'

Beet, 'Golden'

Beets, 'Jewel-Toned Blend'

Chard, 'Italian Silver Rib' & Spinach, 'Catalina'

I'm dying to share stories with you, but I must spend today's limited after-work time IN the garden. When I've more time to write, I'll tell you about kite string and square foot gardening, green pea risotto dreams, and wireworm woes.

Pea, 'Little Marvel'

Theme & Variations

The theme, which I started in a previous post, is a day in a country garden; the variations are minor: on this visit, I read more and walked less -- it was too hot for physical movement beyond turning the page. Normally on a long weekend I'd welcome the sunshine, but this year I would have been thrilled with a heavy downpour. Many forest fires are burning in the province today. My thoughts and prayers are with the evacuees and the fire-fighters.

You might sense my niggling feeling of unease behind some of the photos. The summer has been too hot and dry and concerns about climate change temper my happiness about the kitchen garden harvest.

"Winter" and lavender greet me as I pull into my mom's driveway.

"Gardening at the Dragon's Gate", THE book on my summer reading list. Make that life-enriching reading list.

Cool as a cucumber in the shade: 'Green Fingers', a Persian Baby Cucumber suitable for containers. We let it grow to more than 15 cm (6 inches) before munching its chilled, crisp, crunchiness yesterday. Very refreshing.

A small summer harvest -- I'll be consulting my food network (you know who you are) on how to make the most of the flavour and freshness.

Heirloom Sweet Pea 'Cupani's Original'
"An especially strong blooming strain of the first cultivated sweet pea. Perfumed, heat-tolerant and beautifully bi-colored in deep maroon-purple and orchid-violet" (Source: Renee's Garden Seeds)

Almost dusk. I wish I could say this is a completely smog-free sunset but I'm not sure.

I don't want to end this post on a low note. Despite immediate and long-term concerns threats on my mind this BC Day long weekend, I'm still grateful for the beauty, bounty and life's lessons Nature provides in exchange for a little bit of sowing, watering, feeding and TLC.