The Mint Patch Monologue

Tag: vegetables

  • The Garden Boss

    My, oh my, the garden. I have been so behind lately on writing from picking tomatoes, harvesting green beans, and sitting in awe of sunflowers. I have put up a few quarts of peas, shelling them was the most satisfying ritual, and now that the crop has finished producing and been laid to rest, I miss the tiny discoveries and abundant sound of popping pods. My husband doesn’t even like peas but loved the practice of growing them this year. Now is the time to decide if I want to plant another row for a fall harvest, what do you think?

    My German tomato plant has given us perfectly round and red beauties; small, somewhere in between the size of an early girl and a Rosella. They have been perfect for salads. One raised bed is entirely dedicated to tomatoes, most of them volunteers from last year with lots of cherry varieties. I  can see them blushing from the bedroom window I look out, and I like them  best still warm from the summer sun.  The crisper drawer is holding a pile of cucumbers, they really do sneak up on you if you’re not careful.  Once they get too yellow-ripe they can always be salvaged as a fresh juice ingredient or thrown to your neighbor’s chickens. That’s only wishful thinking on my end though, chickens aren’t allowed within the city  limits in town so I have to go a little further than next door for fresh eggs.

    A few discarded pumpkins and gourds from last fall that found their final rest in the garden beds have renewed themselves, and almost taken over the entire yard.  I have already reaped a nice sized, bright orange pumpkin which will be roasted and saved for November pies and pumpkin rolls. Chris makes the best pumpkin rolls and gets requests for them every year, but always makes an extra one for just us to keep at home. The other vines are welcoming mysterious little yellow and white shapes that are growing everyday, to be surprised in the garden is one of life’s greatest joys.

    There is one watermelon to report on so far, a nice dark green shade and about the size of a softball. The vine is healthy and making space for itself, of course we couldn’t wait so we’ve already devoured the sweetest watermelon from the grocery store, hand picked by Chris with skills I’m not equipped with.  I have been told that not everyone puts salt on their watermelon, which saddens me. Of course the sweetness alone is satisfactory, but the addition of a sprinkle (or a little dip) could bring a tear to a glass eye.  A salt shaker in the backyard is just as important as an indestructible spade, and a love for dirty hands.

    The bean tunnel is a wonderful place to “hang out in.” Although it’s a favorite place for mosquitoes too, it’s worth it.  I’ve placed a little table and a chair inside, and have morning coffee on the weekends. If you pair imagination with gardening you can romanticize life, feel as if you are in another place at another time, or  create something whimsical that no one else on the block has. Things like this conjure up a feeling, something sought after intentionally and then exist just to be experienced. From one garden box to another, all it takes is simple fencing poles, chicken wire, plastic tubing to reinforce the arch shape, and zip ties. Of course, there are a multitude of ways in which one can experience having morning coffee from the inside of a green tunnel of pole beans; incorporate a bit of string lighting and you can find yourself in a fairy tale-like scene, maybe a place where little mice are catching up on their knitting, where you can stay up late into the night with your nose in a book.
     

    I love  the way Glady’s Taber shared her reflections on life at the end of the day. In the summers she would talk about hard work and abundance, dreadful heat, and long days. She wrote about taking a dip in the swimming pond, and sharing the water with frogs, algae, water bugs, turtles and the occasional water snake. She mastered the ability to experience joy outside in every season.

    “Midsummer, in fact, is a good time to think about values, for the earth is fulfilling the promise of spring. I reflect that growth comes from the secret life of seed and bulb. And “as ye sow, so shall ye reap” seems a new truth. Some of the hopes I had in the spring did not, of course, come to blossom. Perhaps I did not tend them well enough, or perhaps they were not suitable to the climate of my life. But some hopes came to fruition, some plans were completed, and another season I can begin again!” -Gladys Taber

    Thank you again for reading, and as always drop me a line anytime because… I do love to chat!

    justicesarah67@yahoo.com

  • Only, for the sake of Beauty

    On gardening

    I learned something, some sort of secret whispered into my ears from the sweet pea vines. As I lay in the grass, comfortably, gazing up at them I realized that I might get only a pint (probably less) of peas from this massive row of intertwined vines I had growing before me. “why then, am I really doing this” I contemplated for only a second before I heard them say back to me… you created beauty. I’ve always felt clever and frugal as a gardener, someone with enough knowledge to stick it to the man, a way around buying bell peppers for 5 dollars a piece at the grocery store. Seeds have always enchanted me, but mainly gardening feels like a duty, a wise practice, clever. I realized after spotting the first few pods, that I could probably buy a 1/2 pound bag of frozen peas for a few dollars, and that would be clever compared to tying the homemade trellis I’d made with 78 tiny knots. But then what would I have to gaze upon in the quiet moments of my life, what could I explore the growth and change of, everyday. A plastic bag of frozen peas is good to eat, but my garden isn’t just for eating, it is an expression of my unexplainable adoration of sheer and perfect beauty. Words are inferior compared to the sight of a tender, living element of the whole that we all belong to. Only a careful and soft inspection of the garden with the eyes can cleanse the tired spirit that endures the fluorescent lights of the day. I am an artist of garden beds, of thriving colors, shapes, and textures. I can travel to art museums, and beaches; I can drive through the mountains and pull off the side of the road at over look stops. I can watch the sunset over the river, and I can read poems; no other beauty however, is more close to being my own, an extension of the way I see the world more so than my own masterpiece of vegetable plants and wildflowers. They are their own star, especially when the sun pours through their hues in the evenings. I cannot take any more credit than appreciating enough to set them into motion, and to care for them. It gives me pause to consider that we eat food without ever enjoying the sights of blooms, or the smells of the vines; that we can visit the grocery store, and stand amongst piles of produce but never saw the orchards. I spend hours studying my peach tree, well before the first July bite of the cobbler.

    This is all a consideration of creating in lieu of consuming. We soak up so much information in a day, we take in the news and fill up online shopping carts. We suck dry the reels, the shorts, 5 seconds, 10 seconds at a time; and we garden to make something else, something real. It’s an experience to be apart of with your hands. June is the perfect month to stare at the peas, their blooms, and to watch the translucent pods fill up slowly with little sweet bites of what you brought into existence. No pixels, nothing digital, just pastel hues and a million shades of green.

    As always please write to me, as I do love to chat!

    And please don’t forget to notice beauty, anywhere you may find it.

    justicesarah67@yahoo.com