Harvest

It begins in the chill of winter when I start the seeds germinating in the sunspace, continues with the planting of the sprouted seeds in the cell packs of soil, brings joy as the seedlings appear and grow even though it is still early spring and chilly outside. Eventually the seedlings get re-planted into bigger peat pots filled with more potting soil, are set out to harden off. The big day comes and the seedlings get planted in the garden, both in the soil, protected by gopher baskets, and in pots and half barrels of potting soil. Drip irrigation gets set up and tested and fixed where there are problems. Plants outside the irrigation system area get watered daily. In time fertilizer is applied, seedlings thinned where needed, plants caged or tied up as they grow taller.

 Flowering happens and in time 'fruit' is set and the beans, peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, squash veggies get bigger day by day. The beets underground do, too. The chard and lettuce get leafier and leafier. The harvest for beans, peas, chard and lettuce is pretty quick and the zucchini also is ready to pick mere days after the blossom is set, but the beets and cucumbers take a while and the tomatoes take a long, long time. It really feels like harvest time when the tomatoes are ripe!

That time has come and we are really enjoying it. Fresh Black Krim, sliced, lightly sprinkled with salt and pepper, drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, it doesn't get much better than that. Fresh tomatoes have been going into salads, sandwiches, crostini spreads, chili, soups and more. The latest is a pasta 'sauce' of roasted Yellow Brandywine tomatoes and a few Russian Plums. They were drizzled with some olive oil before roasting and later tossed with some ground turkey that I had browned with a bit of onion. Parmesan cheese and chopped fresh basil was tossed in with the hot pasta. Sooo good! No recipe needed, right?

BTW the elbow wasn't broken, ligaments weren't torn, but muscle was, so left arm is getting lots of rest and right arm is getting a workout. PT coming up soon, too. Sweetie has been a champ through it all and continues to do things that are difficult, like fastening my seatbelt.

Time has also been taken up of late with a new InDesign class. We are doing a book for the class. If you look at the top right of this blog you'll see that I've done that...a cookbook in fact...but now I'm going to learn how to do even more. Expect another book to show up around Christmas. It is a lot of work, but tons of fun, too! Almost as much fun as harvest.