These are the days.
You dream about them in February, get giddy with excitement in April, work long hours to make them happen in May and then all things come due. And breakfast? Is stir-fried carrots and peppers and baby green beans and sugar snap peas and red-red tomatoes sizzling in olive oil with garlic and just the right amount of Kosher salt with a side of cold, crisp cucumber chunks for dessert. This is when the garden pays off.
The hail aftermath.
I have waited to do much to try to see what will make it and what is just done. Two cucumber plants that basically have no leaves left have decided, in one last-ditch effort to pro-create, to flower profusely. The stem is badly damaged and the lacy, brown-edged confetti that was once the large green leaf flutters in the breeze. I don’t think I could actually get a good cuke from a leafless plant, but shouldn’t I allow it to try?
The peppers stripped of their leaves put all of their effort into maturing the fruit and I got a nice harvest this morning. Several pepper plants are going to bounce back nicely, I have a feeling. I harvested some nice big poblanos this morning. Chile rellenos, here I come!
The eggplant looked terrible on top, but below, protected, are several perfectly formed and hail-beating-free purple eggplants growing.
The cukes were damaged on the outside, but inside, protected and delish. But the zucchini and squash, so tender and beat to a pulp have rotted. Boo hoo.
Our neighbors to the north had no damage to speak of. None. How is this possible? The same lilies I have that just got devastated stand healthy and proud in their yard. Our front pot holding many of the same flowers as theirs got pummeled-the flowers strewn all over the driveway. Theirs-literally 20 yards away did not seem to lose a single bloom.
Is this what is meant by “it rains on the just and on the unjust?” That sometimes things just happen and they can happen to good people and lesser with no regard or distinction? I hope we are the good people in that scenario. I hope it “hailed fiercly on the just.”
Other garden news.
Picked the last of and pulled the sugar snnaps today. They were doing OK, but don’t produce well in the heat. I could sow another batch for fall, but probably won’t with these days being wedding and fest-driven.
Tomato sandwiches are a delight to the soul.
That’s about it…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Stop and smell the basil every day.
