Pulling it in

Here they are - at least the beginning of them...the yellow icebox melons, to be sold this weekend. What with the underground hoses and the flooding of the fiields from the pond, the first melons were just splitting - yikes! you'd pick one up and KAPOW! Yeah, too much water is also not a good thing. But that has calmed down, as the drought goes on and on. The ones in the cart, I believe, are yellow ones. I'm not sure, because Will picked them and he knows which ones are on which rows. The cut one here, is actually one of the orange ones. I thought that orange was going to be orange, but not exactly. Actually, just a much deeper yellow. Very sweet, very good, especially when very, very cold.

This is what the purple hull peas looked like in the garden yesterday evening. Someone called and wanted a bushel, so I went out to pick, but I noticed that the beans were 'done'. There would be no more from these plants. And when the hoses were moved and this row was flooded, many of the beans would be down in the water, and would certainly rot. So I figured I'd just pull up the plants and load them into the cart and dump them on the patio instead. And spend the evening, into the night, pulling beans off of plants. It just had to be done. But the ground is so dry. I pulled some, or, rather, yanked them, but it was tough for me, and I had not brought gloves out to the garden. So Will came over to yank and I hauled. Six or so trips later, the mound on the patio was really, really huge, but the row was pulled. I took one look at that pile of plants and went straight to the telephone. A friend came over to help, and we sat there for a long, long time, pulling beans and laughing and talking, while Will made us a veggie pizza. This morning I have this:a big pile of purple hull peas on a sheet on the floor. Part is already sold, and that's a good thing, because once they air-dry on the floor for a day,l they go into the fridge, and they'll only last so long. Beans are fickle. 'Process me Now!' they demand. One problem of a vary large garden is the volume of certain things. Like beans. When they come in, they all come in at once. Other things are kinder , have more longevity. Eggplants and peppers and okra will go on and on, all summer into the Fall, and when you plant the fall garden, sometimes you just have to mow them down and till them up. You wouldn't think you'd get sick of any lovely vegetable, but it's like anything else. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. One year, we actually had to mow down the lettuce in February. It just wouldn't die! And so, in one of our last big pushes to 'move the produce', we'll be open this weekend. Let's hope nobody wants a garden tour at noon!!

The Life and Times of the Horticulture Bean Row

Some people seem to get pretty excited about Horticulture beans. And some people say...'horticulture beans?" I personally try to keep an open mind about them. The beans. They're not something I grew up with. I probably never saw them and certainly never ate them as a child. But as I was eating a bowl of horticulture beans last night and ruminating about them, I realized that, really, they're just white beans - only bigger. And maybe with a different texture...creamier. But maybe, like fresh red beans, you don't really get to know a bean until you've eaten it right out of the garden, freshly shelled and not yet processed; cooked that very same day. Horticulture beans seem to 'make' first of all the beans in the garden. If we're lazy, we don't get to them in time. This year, we were right on top of it.










The minute they started to get pink and white, most of them anyway, we alerted folks that they were 'in' and pulled the plants on Saturday.











We sat out under a tree and pulled all the beans off the plants. This is what was left:
Now in baskets, we'll sell some,
but we'll make sure to shell, blanch and freeze, and dry some.Will's not crazy about my drying beans, but the ones (and there are always some) that are already dried on the plant or in the process of drying out we put aside, saving only the freshest ones for sale. So I take those and just finish off what they were doing anyway. Will says dried beans are a 'dime a dozen' and he's right, but organic dried beans are not. And OUR organic dried beans are certainly not! There are plenty enough to do both.
The only picture I don't have is the one of the wasted bean row; Will did a lot of tilling yesterday evening, but I don't think he got to that row: It's a sad sight, the raggedy torn-up place where a beautiful row once stood. But, as soon as it is tilled it takes on a new character. A beginning rather than an end.

I Know There's Catnip Around Here Somewhere...

The Witty finds the catnip...

We of Little Faith...

It rains - some. Then we think we're out of the woods in the drought sense. Then it doesn't rain. Then we think 'we're going to have to start watering again'. Wow. Look at poor Houston. We want rain, but we don't want 10 inches in four hours! Will and I were on the phone today...'you just can't get it right with the rain' we said. Well. That's a large part of gardening, isnt it? Too much, too little. But...this afternoon late I went into the yard to water the 4 o'clocks and fill one of the bird baths. And I heard thunder. And I looked up. And a storm was forming almost right over our place.



So I sat on the patio and felt the drafts of cold air being pulled down from far above. Saw the clouds building, but wasn't really convinced anything would come of it.

We had a fabulous storm.
What a great frog night this will be.
Listen to the rain and cook some okra and tomatoes...

Dinner at the House Restaurant

If You Come Over Here, There Will Be Cooking and There Will Be Eating

That's a given. And there's been a whole lotta cooking and eating with friends and family this week. Last night, with our daughter and her husband and the baby and my sister. My sister had come over to help pick (thats how you get some corn to take home). She didn't plan to stay. But then the cooking started, and what can you do? She stayed. The menu:

Sweet Sweet Sweet Corn
Small Yellow Potatoes Roasted with Olive Oil and Rosemary
Tomato Tort with Fresh Basil
(recipe below)
Fried Okra
(it's Louisiana and you have to fry something)
Will's Blueberry Pie

Tomato Tort
what you will need:
pie crust
fresh roma tomatoes
fresh basil
Parmesan cheese
Mozarella cheese
olive oil

Brown the pie crust in the oven. If you have an old Chambers stove, like we do, don't set the temperature very high, or the crust will shrink and warp and get totally weird. Slice roma tomatoes about 1/2" thick. It's up to you how many you use, but generally, the more the merrier. Wash and dry the basil, and pull all the leaves off the stems. Layer the tort any way you please. Best not to put the tomatoes next to the crust, because that will only make the crust gooey, and we don't want that! We start with cheese (either one) but my sister was pulling for basil first. However you do it (cheese, tomatoes, basil, other cheese, etc.), do it twice. Make two layers. Sprinkle olive oil on the tomatoes each time you layer them. Run it through the oven quickly if all you want to do is warm up the tomatoes and melt the mozarella. Really bake it (25 minutes or so) if you want everything really hot and melted together (that's what we do).

And now...

This may be it...that morning when you go into the garden and think, "I do believe we're at the top of the hill."
The garden is dense, thick with life. The plants are strong and full of fruit, full of flowers.

A brief photo montage, June 15th.

Borage


watermelons

















limas and zinnias



















green onions

























Cosmos















tassling corn











Anaheims



















edamame



purple hull peas

Extreme Measures for Extreme Times

Remember that rain we had? The one that was going to result in 'Weeds Gone Wild"? Well...
1.5 inches seemed like a lot and gave us hope. But there's been no rain since then, and that poor pitiful 1.5 inches is about all we've had since March.


Time to get out the big guns.


Will set up the pump, ran the hoses through the yard, and proceeded to pump the pond into the garden...

(Actually, he flooded the newly planted pecan trees first)








After the garden, he began to move the hose to the fencelines and then the yard.

I thought the birds were all over it because they wanted water too, but Will came inside and said that the birds were dancing around in the water because crickets and various other little critters were floating everywhere - a smorgasboard!









Water in the pond is now lowered to a pitiful state, but rain will come one day and the pond will eventually fill...in the meantime, the garden has been given a new lease on life.















Any of you who are weather fanatics (like we are), already know that Tropical Storm Alberto is headed for Florida this morning. We sure could have used that rain. You would also know that we are having a mind-blowing heat wave. 99 degrees when we drove to Baton Rouge at 4 o'clock on Saturday afternoon. It was probably that hot yesterday, and as far as we can tell there is no relief in sight.

The only relief I'm hoping for is having the air-conditioning repaired (again).

We seem to be subjects of some kind of 'bad compresser' voodoo this year.

Here is what a stick of butter looks like after sitting on the counter all day in this heat.

Night Blooming Cereus

This is the flower of the night blooming Cereus...I know it looks like it's part of this fern, but in fact the leaves of the plant come out of the pot and hang way, way down. The blooms are nearer the ground, at the lower ends of the broad leaves.
This is the very plant my mother had in her greenhouse when we were small children. She would sneak into or rooms at night and leave one bloom in each room (they smell so good.
These days, I come out early in the morning and see them before they close.
We keep the pot in the greenhouse in the winter, and in the spring we move it into a crepe myrtle tree. Yes, it's hard to get this pot lowered into the tree, and even harder to get it out in the fall!

Night Blooming Cereus are easily propagated from a leaf and, at least in my experience, this plant will be around for the rest of your life if you can keep it from freezing...

Our Seinfeld Tomato Sauce...

No Sauce For You!
Perkins Family Exclusive Private Label Organic Tomato Sauce with Sweet Basil
This is the sauce we put up every season, carefully labeling it so that we don't accidently sell it!
I use only the ripe roma tomatoes. You don't have to cut around the core or cut off the ends...you just quater them and toss them in the pot after cooking down onions and peppers and garlic in olive oil. My new trick this year is one I really should have thought of earlier; cooling down the whole works and running it through the blender. What you get is something that looks an awful lot like really good tomato soup - and you can make it into tomato soup by adding half and half and more spices.
But it's perfect for high-end tomato sauce.
I'd like to put up more, but every time you go through this, it seems like it's going to be a breeze, and it ends up being more work than you remembered!
Besides...it's time for pickles! No rest for the gardener this time of year.
It is so terribly dry and hot (again). Will is off to the plumbing supply place. It is finally time to flood the garden from the pond. That will do the trick. Maybe we'll get some rain and maybe we won't. We will also flood the yard and the pecan trees for good measure. Then we can porch-sit and not worry about whether or not we get a good rain in the near future.

Pissin' Off the Bees

I know, I know...the beans need picking (or, rather, pickin').
I got enough purple beans the other evening to have with dinner, checking the severity of the situation...emergency or 'it can wait a couple of days'.
One side of the row is no problem. It's just a matter of stooping between two bean rows.
But when you pick beans, you have to go down both sides of the row, because there's no way to reach all the beans otherwise; and the other side of THIS row butts up against very, very tall sunflowers. Doesn't matter what time of the day it is, the bees are quite busy with the sunflowers. The bees won't bother you - I mean, they won't chase you or anything. But they do not like to be disturbed! They are very serious in their activities. So, going down (only part of) the other side of the row was awkward. I kept backing up against the sunflowers and there was much loud buzzing!




I think I'll wait till Friday. Some students and parents are coming over to pick, and I'll find somebody short enough and skinny enough to go down in there and get those purple beans!








At least limas have the decency to stick the beans right up the air where you can see them!

A long time ago we lived on a farm in Washington Parish-very rural is an understatement. Around there, every vegetable-picking enterprise had a particular tag. You 'gather' beans...you 'pull' corn. You'd sound like a moron if you didn't use the lingo. You 'can' tomatoes...and I never understood that one, because you're not putting them in cans, you're putting them in jars. Someone explain this, please!

Sunday Night Carrots

Will pulled all the carrots up probably three weeks ago - maybe longer. And they've been in bags in the outside fridge, waiting for this day ever since. Carrots are forgiving that way. They keep.
He had this vision. Every now and then we go to Ninfa's (a Mexican restaurant), mainly because they have these fabulous ribs. But on every table is a little jar of carrots, pickled with jalepenos and not much else. But he really likes those carrots, and we were waiting until we had carrot-excess so he could pull off this little project.
Like any other pickled product, you really have to wait a couple of weeks before whatever it is soaks up the spices etc. and is ready to try...I don't know if we'll wait that long. And we haven't decided what to name these, so it's not label time yet. We like to get creative with the labeling, because that's part of the fun. They're kind of beautiful though, aren't they?
This would never have been accomplished had my sister not shown up to help with 'whatever it is we need help with today'. And she brought extra shoes and thought we'd be out in the field picking yesterday evening. But Will knows an opportunity when he sees one, and not many people are willing to help with a canning project. Very labor-intensive and it always drags on a little longer than you really have the energy for. She was glad not to be picking and he was glad to have an extra set of hands. She brought a really cool new-fangled vegetable peeler (and her own knives).
We took time out for crab cakes and sliced tomatoes.
It's always fun to set out the jars and, as you are going about your business (usually cleaning up because canning can be messy), you hear the jars sealing, one by one. 'Pop....pop...' that's the sound of the lids being sucked down onto the glass.

What is it about Herbs?

I suppose people start to grow herbs for a whole slew of different reasons. Most often, it's probably because they like to cook with herbs, or would like to learn to.
Although we are passionate and hard-working gardeners, and Will is a world-class cook, we hadn't really thought much about growing herbs until we moved to this particular piece of property. But it had nothing to do with cooking, in the beginning. It had to do with hair...or shampoo, rather. That was the impetus.
I became disgusted with the effect of commercial products on my hair, particularly as I became older and my hair became older also. (you women out there know what I mean) I read all of the ingredients on my shampoo bottle, many of which I could not pronounce, and wondered what women used to wash their hair with before there were bottles of all this chemical %*# on the shelf. So I started reading. It was pretty basic, actually. Unadulterated castille soap (which is made from olive oil) and various herbs to enhance this or that hair color, or to give it shine or whatnot. Hmmmmm.
And so my passion for herbs began. And of course it didn't stop with making shampoo. But, here we are seven years or so later, and I have discovered the wonderful world of growing all manner of herbs, not just for making 'beauty products' but for a multitude of purposes not the least of which is cooking. (but I digress). In the beginning I grew rosemary (for dark hair), marigolds (for the petals, for blond hair), parsley (for shine).
When I realized how easy herbs were to grow, and what odd surprises they would offer from one season to the next, I kind of went crazy. Now I have 18 permanent herb beds in the 'big garden', and seperate beds for commercial peppermint and rosemary; fencelines for tarragon, lemongrass...it's impossible to stop!
I'm reminiscing this evening because of a comment to one of the posts...a man in Canada who is doing pots of herbs....what a great adventure...but be careful. This is how it begins! There is no turning back! One small but important piece of advice - invest in a decent herb dryer. You'll not regret it.

Pay no attention To This Picture

Here we are, a cute little cart of tomatoes all stacked in buckets ready to be driven to the house.

It does look nice, but it's not what it seems. And it makes me laugh to see this picture I took just a few hours ago.

There was much stooping and sweating and swatting of squash bugs that fly at you from the plants. They still startle me as I rustle each tomato plant, although I already know they are there!
I don't know exactly how much these buckets weigh when they're full of tomatoes, but it's almost more than I can pick up and swing two more feet in front of me in the row, clunking it down, standing up and stretching, bending over another plant.

I kept gazing over the garden looking for Will, hoping he was finished picking cucumbers ...they're just as heavy, and prickly besides. He came to the rescue and we filled all the buckets we brought out to the field (there were more than those in the cart), so we just kind of said...'oh well, we'll finish tomorrow'.
...I'm deleriously happy to have the tomatoes. This weekend looks like a sauce-making weekend to be sure, and I've been jealously watching tomatoes go out the door to the Health Food store, or to regular customers. I kept saying..."ok, the next ones are for US, ok?" It's time again for our Perkins Family Private Label 'No Sauce For You!' Tomato Sauce.
That's the stuff that stays on the shelf. Since we're not going to the Farmer's Market this year, there's no need to make it to sell...which is fine. It's impossible to charge a decent price that reflects the work involved, and we wouldn't want to charge an arm and a leg.

We hung out our little signs and people have been drifting by and that's been nice. It seems like everyone knows we're here and we can be more relaxed about selling...even if we don't have the market tent up, we can just stroll over to the house when we see a car drive in, and pull out the scale and some bags and the veggies out of the outside fridge, and have a nice conversation with someone we haven't seen since last season.

This is last year's tent, and it looks like when the corn and the watermelons come in, the tent is going back up...