It seems that I spend my life either taking things out of the freezer (fall and winter) or putting things into the freezer (spring and summer). The putting-into-the-freezer season is here, and I\’d better get busy, if we want to eat next winter.
I harvested a big armful of rhubarb this morning. I love those huge leaves, as big as elephant ears, and stack them on some wild rosebush sprouts that I\’m trying to suffocate to death (it\’s almost impossible to kill a wild rosebush without using herbicides). I chopped up the rhubarb stems and filled three one-gallon bags, each of which–with the addition of eggs, flour, oil and pecans–will make a batch of six rhubarb bread loaves on some snowy afternoon. When the chopping was done I was left with the trademark black fingernails that result from some weird reaction between the rhubarb juice and my skin and will take about a week to disappear.
I also picked a basketful of kale, which I tore into pieces and threw, stems and all, into the big vat of dog food that I cook every month. In case you\’re wondering, this mixture of rice, veggies, eggs, oil, garlic and powdered milk does not constitute my dogs\’ entire diet–only about a quarter of it, the rest being a decent kind of kibble. Wolfie and Bisou love it, though, and I feel that I\’m ensuring that they will live forever….
The lavender has just started blooming, so I picked that, hoping to encourage the plants to produce more. It\’s not been a good lavender year so far–lavender wants hot, dry weather instead of this chilly damp. I lost a couple of plants over the winter, and the survivors are putting out feeble little blooms. I hung today\’s harvest in a bunch from the light fixture above the dining room table. It doesn\’t look like much, but I can smell it every time I walk by.
I\’ve been meaning to make arugula soup while the arugula, which does like chilly damp weather, holds out. Also, my spinach crop has been negligible, but I should do something with it before the weather changes and it bolts. Meanwhile, it\’s started raining again. My green Vermont is so green these days that when I look out the window I almost feel like I\’m swimming underwater in some woodland pond.
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I am reading this as the next wave of rain comes through…
Went to pick kale for the food bank this morning and the water in parts of the garden was up to my ankles.
Just got my new stove and am itching to make escarole soup – will be thinking of you with the arugula.
Escarole is a type of lettuce, right? Ergo, one can also make lettuce soup? I'll have to check this out (how did I ever cook before the internet?).
Old Italian recipe from my grandmother but I've seen in called \”wedding soup.\” Escarole is green and looks like curly kale to me.
When my husband and I go to Albany, we sometimes have lunch at a diner that has Italian wedding soup on the menu. I'll have to try it.
It seems like just yesterday you were setting out starts to be frostbitten, and here you are beginning to harvest. I hope you'll have some of that rhubarb in a pie, as I garden vicariously through you.
My way of having rhubarb pie consists of giving rhubarb to my daughter, who makes a really good pie.