Every morning I wander out to my garden. On the way I stop and toss a few flakes of hay to our horses, feed and water the ducks in the orchard, and while the duck's swimming pool is filling, I meander through my garden taking in the state of things.
My first stop is always the basil. My fingers dance among the fragrant leaves and I always pause to inhale that glorious scent that is basil. It is the ultimate scratch and sniff plant, I never get tired of it's piney minty fragrance. After filling my olfactory glands with molecules of basil scent gloriousness, I then proceed with my morning garden inspection.
Right now it is the crux of green bean production at my place. In any normal non-canning lid shortage year, I'd probably be canning the plethora of green beans, but as I am saving my canning lid stash for tomatoes, peppers, and applesauce, I've been blanching and freezing green beans every other morning or so.
By the time I crouch down and inspect the green beans, the Guardian Of The Garden shows up and proceeds to demand the fealty owed for her services rendered. Khajit, AKA Dogcat, lives in my house during the winter, but as her grand kittens are currently terrorizing my abode, she spends most of her days languishing in the garden and assassinating any mole, vole, or gopher foolish enough to invade her territory.
She's also very demanding when seeking pets and scratches. Like a Karen seeking a Panera assistant manager persistent.
After paying the rodent removal toll, I meandered through Tomatoville. My tomato plants are already far over my head in height, which of course means in a couple more weeks I will have to cut the tops off of them since we will be in September and I will want the fruit to do its ripening thing. Thanks to our summer of frying, I have some massive tomatoes growing on my lush plants. As we eat bushels of tomatoes every winter, I am not really sad about the surplus of nightshade fruit.
Next to the tomatoes are a row of jalapeno pepper plants. They too have loved the heat and holy hotness do I ever have a lot of peppers to can this year! Good thing I have some sacred canning lids...
My corn, for whatever reason, did not achieve its normal lofty heights, but it does have plenty of developing ears on it. I have been having dreams of bbq'd corn of the cob slathered in cilantro lime butter and sea salt. Hmm, I might be hungry now.
And another thing I have been craving is fresh tzatziki sauce. Good thing I have the mother lode of cucumbers coming on! The garlicky, cucumbery, yogurt sauce of gloriousness shall soon flow!!
With it being late summer here in North Idaho (I often get my first frost the first week of September) I have been pondering fall and winter greens production. My greenhouse is all prepped for seedings of radishes, spinach, and lettuce. I've also got a couple of these fellows to throw in there, because why not?
Animals fed, garden strolled through, I made it back to my house to water the flowers on my porch as I always do before I sit and sip my coffee on the deck. There's something so soothing and soul-fortifying about meandering through one's hard work and just absorbing it as it is rather than looking at it and considering what has to be done. I'm trying to do better about such things, and the garden is always helpful in that regard.
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's now in basil scent iPhone.
