Sometimes naked fresh is the best

What could be better than freshly sliced cucumber on a just-baked piece of bread smeared with your favorite spread and topped with a salt and herb mixture? Having just finished eating that for lunch, I can’t think of anything more satisfying for a light meal. Of course, if I hadn’t eaten my just-cut salad greens yesterday, I could have added that as a side dish. 

As gardening season winds down, I’m reminded of how much I love certain fresh produce when it’s eaten “as is” or only minimally prepared. All of the raspberries never make it into the house as I snack when I pick. Sometimes I just walk to the garden and eat straight from the vine for dessert!  Strawberries, grapes and blueberries are the same; I have to at least taste them as I harvest. Jim loves plucking the warm peach and demolishing the fruit before he bring it inside. He’ll even eat an ear of corn as soon as he picks it.

Some people savor the tomato sandwich. I really don’t care for them freshly sliced in salad or on a sandwich, but I do love making the simple Baked Caprese Salad that puts the reddest slice of a Costoluto Genovese on top of oven-toasted bread then melts mozzarella on the tomato, finishing it with a fresh Basil leaf. I feel the same way about peppers, especially yellow and red ones, in that I lightly saute them in oil, sometimes throwing in greens as well.  

A gardener and cook should always taste the labor of love at as many stages as possible to see how you like it best. Following recipes to the final instruction can result in a fabulous product. But if you taste along the way, you might find a new option for making the dish even better. 

So here’s to enjoying the last harvests of the season. Savor and commit that taste to memory. When February comes, that will be your motivation for another season of gardening.

Preparing for bugs and productivity

Bugs and soil. The productive garden needs to have beneficial insects but not those that are destructive. It also requires fertile soil with the proper pH for what you are growing. With the sun shining beautifully on the garden this past weekend, I began exploring how to optimize both of these this year.

It was the blueberries I planted that prompted me to first search out help with the acidity of my soil. The bushes we first planted produced berries but never thrived. I want to be sure the soil is at the correct pH level this time. I was happy to find a pH meter in the gardening section of one of the stories I frequent. I promptly purchased it, read the instructions and tested our soil. As I suspected, it’s not acidic enough.
I had already added organic matter, which my organic gardening book had recommended. I wasn’t sure what else to add to keep the garden organic so I began my search, finding the same recommendations repeatedly: pine bark mulch, pine needles, cottonseed meal and sulfur. This article has more insight.

It sounds like this will be a longer-term process than adding a simple amendment immediately, but I believe patience will pay off.

The other research I picked up over the weekend was a start to which herbs and companion plants might diminish garden pests. I experimented with this last year on a small level and the only bugs I had trouble with were squash beetles. I’m more serious about it this year. Our winter wasn’t as cold as usual and spring has come early, ideal conditions in which some bugs will thrive. For now, I’ve planted some herb seeds in pots for later transplanting. As the sun shines I’m sketching out my planting plan for this year, experimenting with different arrangement to maximize the benefits of companion planting.
Before I sign off today also want to revisit the question of safe seeds to use. So far I’ve identified two sources that I feel safe recommending because of their company philosophies and statements: Johnny’s Select Seeds and Seeds of Change.

If you have recommended sources for seeds, or any other gardening advice to share, please post it in our comments so we can all continue to learn.

Eating a healthy breakfast

I attend a church that is blessed by the presence of a number of caring nurses who have recently started a health ministry program. Like many churches, we typically follow our Sunday morning service with coffee and doughnuts. Of course, doughnuts aren’t the healthiest choice so this past Sunday, our health ministers offered us something different.

What was on that menu? We enjoyed plain and vanilla yogurt to which we could add blueberries, raspberries, bananas, raisins or granola; turkey sausage links; nutty pumpkin bread (with pumpkin from my garden); and two juices (one with pomegranate) that didn’t have sweetener added. Oh yes, we also had chocolate chips to put into the yogurt—an attempt to interest the children in actually trying it.

The positive reactions from those present demonstrated that sometimes it just takes a taste or two of something healthy to introduce someone to a new, more positive, habit.

Thank you Cindy, Theresa and Lu!