An old, Italian man lived alone in the country. He wanted
to dig his tomato garden, but it was very hard work as the
ground was hard. His only son, Vincent, who usually helped him,
was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and
described his predicament.
Dear Vincent,
I am feeling pretty low because it looks like
I won’t be able to plant my tomato garden this year. I’m just
getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. I know if you
were here my troubles would be over. I know you would be happy
to dig the plot for me.Love, Dad
A few days later he received a letter from his
son.
Dear Dad,
Don’t dig up that garden. That’s where I buried
the bodies.Love, Vinnie
At 4 a.m. the next morning, FBI agents and local police
arrived and dug up the entire area without finding any bodies.
They apologized to the old man and left. That same day the old man received another letter from his son.Dear Dad,
Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now. That’s the
best I could do under the circumstances.Love you, Vinnie
People just send me this stuff. No kidding. :)…Jeanie
pictured: Some shots I snapped this morning of my future. And it is good!
Category Archives: 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons
The Tomato
How can I communicate the taste, the essence of the tomato?
The tomato, ripened as God intended on the vine, is more complex and flavorful than almost any other. With the slightest sprinking of salt on a freshly thick-cut slice, the exploding, tingling zest of life is captured on your tongue, the tangy bite melting into a powerful, full taste of the summer season. The suggestion of blazing days of sun and long, warm nights are all contained in the deep red, seeded fruit. Tart and sweet at the same time, the tomato is the iconic garden fruit, which when ripened, is the vegetable to which all others must defer.
Pick maybe just before you actually think it is ripe, maybe the day before you’ll eat it. Never, ever refrigerate. Always slice at room temperature for peak intensity, flavor.
Then try to figure out: what on earth does a tomato taste like? For I – am at a loss for words.
I love the home-grown, organic tomato and believe it should be wholeheartedly celebrated…Jeanie
NOTE: Oh yes, I have written about the tomato before, here and here and here.
pictured: google image, but one of the best ways to enjoy garden fresh tomatoes. Slice, top with fresh chunks of mazarella and chopped basil, drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil and sweet balsamic vinegar.
Asparagus Beans
I came across a package of Asparagus Bean seeds I’d forgotten about and had no room for. I popped a few seeds into a potted jasmine container and forgot about them. On a drive-by watering a week or so ago, I thought I saw some green yarn tangled in the plant, but found instead that these bright green, very long, skinny beans were growing through the jasmine.
In rereading the package, I learned that they will grow to 3 feet long if you want to harvest the bean from the pod, but to eat like a regular snap bean, you harvest them at 12-15 inches long, braid them and steam them for an unusual presentation. Once they pop out, they seems to grow about 4″ a day.
They are funny looking, but fun. The flavor, so says the package, is like a mix between asparagus, mushrooms and beans. I stir-fried some and it was good, but I didn’t really detect 3 flavors. I am still amused that it is like eating a shoestring-licorice style vegetable.
Hollyhock Dolls
When I grew up in Des Moines, Iowa, hollyhocks grew like weeds in the alleys and my friends and I used toothpicks and hollyhocks to create dolls now and again. One toothpick was inserted into an unblossomed bud and then connected to an upside down bloom. The second toothpick was poked through “the body” horizontally for “arms”. Sometimes we held the toothpick between our finger and thumb under the “gown” and made our little dolls dance and twirl.
Guini and I made one a couple of days ago in between splashing pool times. She is my “flower girl,” loving all the flowers and their names.
I love the flower girl…J
NOTE TO SELF: Disperse the numerous hollyhock seedlings round the yard for more fun next year.
The Case of the Misdirected Sunflower
Dave and I met and married in North Dakota, where we both attended Bible College. ’81 was our summer of love. Our first date was 5.26.81 and we married on 7.23.81.
The summers in North Dakota are spectacular. It is a shame you can’t bottle that. The sun takes almost forever to finally fall from the sky at night and is brilliant throughout the day. North Dakota is a little, plain, shall we say, in some ways? And flat. Conservative. And there are lots of white houses.
But one thing you see there that is better than anywhere else? Fields of sunflowers, faithfully and brilliantly holding their gorgeous yellow-orange heads high and seemingly following the sun. True. In the morning, their little faces facing east, then, operating in heliotropism, they would “follow the sun” until they were facing west by evening. Sometime during the night, in anticipation of the next sunrise, they’d be facing east again. A wonder to behold!
I threw a few sunflower seeds in the yard this year and have watched over the past few weeks as the unblossomed buds have heliotroped about, back and forth, east to west, daily. But when the first 7-foot-high bloomer occured: nothing. Nada. It has faced the east and moved not one iota. “What is wrong, tall flower?” I’d ask. “Look this way, come on, look over here.” No response. It has fixed it’s gaze on my neightbor’s back porch and she rarely comes out. True, her overly-zealous, fence-jumping sprinklers do provide the needed waterings, which is why I decided to plant them in the awkward behind-the-pool space anyway. Still, I am being ignored in favor of a woman who does not care.
Dave asked me if I planted the seeds backwards. Har-dee-har-har.
In desperation, I Wikipedied this problem and am dismayed to learn that sunflowers in the blooming stage (maturity, it seems) are no longer heliotropic, but frozen in one direction, usually east, meaning all of my sunflowers will benefit some one else, as I will only get to gaze on their hinder parts. This is indeed disturbing and so unlike, I am quite certain, their North Dakato fields of cousins.
But the case is solved.
I love the backyard, though…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Next year-Cannas!
August 8: It’s a Zucchini Holiday
No kidding. Today is really an “official” Zucchini Holiday, better known as “Sneak some Zuchini onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Night.” Most of the “celebration” happens after sundown, apparently.
I sent Stephanie home yesterday with an armload of zucchini and she was searching www.allrecipes.com for a fresh and creative way to serve it and happened across the article on how to properly celebrate this holiday. I am only printing portions of it here, but you may verify the whole thing by linking the title in the first paragraph.
By the way, my 3 favorite ways with zucchini are
- Tossed in an extra-virgin olive oil, sprinkled with garlic powder, salt and pepper, maybe some Mrs Dash or crushed red pepper flakes and grilled just long enough for some beautiful black grill marks, as it caramelizes and gets sweet.
- Same as above, except popped under the broiler until you see the carmelization begin.
- Severed into 1/4″ succulent slices, dipped in Tempura batter (grab a box from the Asian food aisle for the simplest, crispest breading ever using very cold water) and fried in canola oil until light and crisp (not brown). Dip in Ranch dressing. This breading and frying technique works for mushrooms, cut up leftover chicken or pork, green tomatoes, corn on the cob. Mmmmm.
Dave, of course, still prefers his zuchini shredded beyond recognition and turned into sort of a “stuffing-type” casserole. Yes, he likes church-dinner food.
Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Night
By: Allrecipes Staff
Celebrate this fun holiday on August 8!
Established by Pennsylvanian Tom Roy, this day encourages sharing. “Due to the overzealous planting of zucchini, citizens are asked to drop off baskets of the squash on neighbors’ doorsteps.”
About the holiday
A few suggestions from Tom Roy’s “Top 20 List for successful sneaking of Zucchini or otherwise ridding yourself of unwanted surplus summer squash:”
(Note:Allrecipes does not endorse any of these activities.)
(ANOTHER NOTE: Nor does Jeanie)
Do you have any ideas to add?…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: I am keeping mine: Zucchini summer pasta…zucchini brownies…stuffed zucchini…zucchini marmelade…zucchini parmesan…zucchini relish…stir-fried zucchini…Mexican zucchini soup…Crab-stuffed zucchini…chocolate chip zucchini muffins…need I say more?
Never Trust a Zucchini
Seriously. Don’t trust a zucchini. Not ever. Just don’t.
You go out to water early in the day before the sun has shown it’s face. You see a little fruit looking so tender, so true. You think about picking it, it is almost perfect. But then it says to you, “Just wait until this evening-just before you want to put me on the grill. I’ll be perfect then. I’ll have plumped up becoming even more juicy. I’ll just wait here.”
But 12.2 hours later, when you return, that same green fruit has gone from bomb pop size to summer sausage size (while you were unaware) and is now the size of Popeye’s forearm. Just like that!
Watch them. Observe them closely. This is the time of year they will outwit you and become useless for anything other than a shredded zuchini baked casserole and that is just not right.
I’ve warned you before. I hope you’re heeding it…Jeanie
This google image is some novice proudly displaying their 11-pound zuchini, as if they had anything to do with it. Only non-gardeners are impressed with this because we who know the beast know that this is a monster from hell out of control!
Great recipe here for the wayward and trickster zuch. Warning here.
NOTE: My true friends will rejoice with me in knowing that beginning the day after Heaven Fest I began harvesting just-ripe mini Romas (aka grape tomatoes) and Patio Tomatoes. Is God good, or what?
Today’s Garden Checklist
6:10 a.m. Late for my meeting with God. Made some coffee and curled up on the swing in the cool of the morning. We talked. I looked around and saw the beauty. Made a mental checklist of things to be done in my “extra” couple of free hours today. Refreshed and awakened sweetly.
7:00 a.m. Time in the Word is time with the Word. Today, I felt like listening to Max McClean read the Bible so I could just soak it in while I did a little watering. Listened to some Ephesians and meditated on Psalm 119 several times (go to www.biblegateway.com click on “Listen to the Bible” select your passage and let the “washing of the water of the Word” cleanse your soul…).
8:00 a.m. Made my checklist for this morning:
- Spread manure in corn “field”. It isn’t a true “field”, of course, for I live in suburbia. But I dedicated one of my 4′ x 4′ beds to as much corn as French-Intensive gardening will allow. We’ll be blessed to get 36 or so ears of corn out of it, but I want the grandkids to experience corn straight off the stalk and into the pot. They say corn begans to lose its’ sweetness within 8 hours of being harvested. One of my fondest memories is the summer I stayed with my relatives on a farm for a couple of weeks. At lunch time Aunt Donita would say, “I’ve got the water on. You kids run to the field and get yourself some corn.” And my cousins and I would all pick what we wanted and throw it in the pot when we got back. Then we’d gather around the farmhouse table where there would be a big plate of real butter and we’d just roll our ears of corn in it, add some salt and lots of pepper and MMMmmmmmm. This was lunch everyday. And it was God and it was good!
- Harvest the sugar snaps. It’s getting late. They are trying to make seed, so the pods aren’t very long and not quite as sweet as a couple of weeks ago, but I am loving them in salads and even the morning omelet. Peas are the gardener’s candy. I’ve grown regular peas, but hated the de-podding. I have grown snow peas, but but missed the fat fruit. Sugar Snap peas are the best of both worlds: you can stir fry with the pod intact as it is highly edible, too, or de-pod and let the little green spheres pop pop pop in your mouth! Gemma discovered them last night and loves them, too!
- Tidy up patio areas and toys from last night’s pool party. The pool is up finally! It is just one of those inflatable 15′ x 3′ deep backyard sorts, but on a hot afternoon? Heaven on earth! Steph & Tris and the kids came over. Tredessa was here, too. I was sad when they went home.
- More water in the pool. Getting the little ones used to it slowly.
- Harvest lettuce. So pretty!
- Photograph Averi’s garden sign and fertilize her chiles. I hadn’t gotten on the chile-pepper level and was surprised to find, through the camera lense, that Averi has about 6 green chiles growing away. This is her first, and obviously already successful, gardening experience.
- Water the grass-seed patched areas. You’re suppose to do this in April, but grass germinates in 48 hours this time of year. Each summer, I tend to what the crazy dog has destroyed. It is amazing how quickly grass recovers in those little patches!
- Water pots and veggies. With the Colorado sun, you have to do this everyday!
- Re-pot Stormie’s Zinnias. The library gave her some cheap seeds. They are growing beautifully in Miracle-Gro potting soil, as most things do.
- Gather purple Celosia volunteers for Tara, pot some up for myself. Last year’s giant pot of Purple Celosia apparently blew far and wide throughout the garden for there are small, but very happy seedlings in almost all pots, whether welcomed there or not, and in the garden beds. I’ll probably have to uproot and toss most, but I put a nice container together for Tara (who will be arriving home from a week in New York City today) because she loves her flower gardening, too, and I made myself a big pot. It will go on the tree stump near the fence on the east side where it will peek through and be colorfully framed by the yellow and profusely flowering Potentillas. No muss, no fuss.
- Get garlic chives under control! If you’ve bought one container of garlic chives, you’ve bought a hundred! Those little boogers are seeders, extraordinaire! Which is nice, really. When I go to the grocery store and see the little “gourmet” containers of herbs and chives, etc. that they sell for $2.99, I try to calculate the value of said spices and herbs in my own yard. One day I determined I had at least $98 worth of chives, $30-some worth of sage and $60 or so worth of a few different types of oregano. Makes me feel rich!
9:15 a.m. Finished with “chores” in the yard. Time to spare.
Pool-time, I am thinking…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Soak up a few rays before Heaven Fest (12 days away…), with proper SPF protection, of course.
pictured: the pool through some lilies and holleyhocks; Averi’s garden marker (it is suppose to be a chile roasting in fire – I am no artist!); Tre and the Kelley kids yesterday; breakfast this morning – a baby zuchini and sugar snap peas sizzling in the skillet in some olive oil with salt and garlic, mm, mm, good.
Bouquets of Lettuce
I have harvested my first two baby zuchinis (or is it just ‘zuchini’)? They are dark green and beautiful, small and perfect. And remember, people, if your neighbor or “loved one” brings you a giant zuchini, bigger than your thigh – it is an act of passive-violence against you. No zuchini should be allowed to become Jabba-the-Hut. Read my previous warnings here and here.
No, a zuchini should be gently pulled from the vine while the skin is tender and unblemished. It should be delicately sliced on the diagonal and tossed in extra-virgin olive oil, seasoned carefully with kosher salt and freshly-ground pepper, maybe some Mrs. Dash or garlic powder and then grilled to barely-past-crisp, when it has sweetly carmelized where dark grill lines have formed. Succulent!
All five tomato plants are fruiting away. I can’t wait to show Gavin the handfuls of grape tomatoes that have formed while he’s been vacationing. I doubt many will make it into the house with his mad love for the tomato (a boy after his Nonna’s heart).
My first hibicus flower of 2 large shrubs appeared today. They are a few weeks late, but I see thousands of buds. A couple of years ago as I was going through my life’s lowest point so far, I would count the hibiscus flowers that appeared each day as a sign that it would get better. I needed something those dark days to bring hope. I remember the “7-hibicus-bloom” day. Then there was the “12-hibiscus-bloom” day. It seems silly now, but it was the touch point for me, then. It finally increased to hundreds of blossoms and I was indeed healing. Seeing them again now reminds me. God is good.
The grass is happy in July! The daylilies are blooming madly each day, and starting over the next. The Asian lilies are standing tall and proud and the hollyhocks are a spectacular sight. When I picked a handful of some chartreuse leaf lettuce for Sesame Turkey Roll-ups for lunch, is was the perfect “bouquet” so I put it in water in a vase to enjoy on the counter until I am ready to wash it and eat it.
There are 2 large robins that are swooping my head daily, so they must be hiding some eggs somewhere in the yard. They truly have no fear of me and while it creeps me out when they swoop from behind and I suddenly experience the wind from their wings on my face, yesterday they came right at me face-to-face, while I innocently sat on the swing. I actuilly ducked and they flew so close, as if playing “chicken,” then swooped at the final moment – right under the top bar of the swing inches from my head to, I assume, make their point – whatever it is. (?)
Stormie says it is like the Seinfield episode where they make a thing out of Elaine’s big head because birds were flying into her. Hmph.
I am meeting God very early in the garden these days. You should try it, too!…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Make friends with the robins. If this fails, take dominion.
pictured: zuchini, bouquets of lettuce, a couple of my “flower girls,” Averi and Guini
Talk to Tomatoes
I wrote about the first tomato of the season, see here. The very next day, I decided to rotate the pot a bit and it turns out there are 5 tomatoes and the one I saw must’ve been number four, according to size. Yay, patio tomato, most humble and plain of them all. You’re a beauty in your terra cotta pot, thick-stemmed and flowery. You’re making me happy. Fruit, little plant, fruit!
Pictured: you can see three of the 5 clearly – maybe 4 if you make the effort.