I’m having a hard time accepting the end of the growing season, and believe me; I’ve dragged it out as long as I can.

Tilling under the gardens and dumping out the flower pots feels like I’m being forced to end a summer romance just when I fell in love.

Just when the meadows are at their greenest, the fall fruits are pouring off the vines, and my muscle memory has finally mastered the toolshed—everything changes.  The next thing I know, I’m commuting to work in the dark (both ways) and spending more time prisoner to Dancing with the Stars than enjoying my own reality.

You’d think that by the first of December I’d be able to accept this annual routine and move on.  Apparently not.  I’m still infatuated with the color and warmth and light of summer.

Wishing I could color render the outside world

Holding on to every last ray of sunshine and every last degree above freezing, I feel like this Delphinium blooming outside my kitchen window.  The Sedum Autumn Joys and the New England Asters have long surrendered, but this gal isn’t giving up just yet.

I check on this Delphinium first thing every morning, ignoring the fact that our window-filled home loses its privacy this time of year.  The surrounding woods and farm fields are now dotted with camouflaged men, perched in treetops with spotting scopes capable of discovering life on Mars, and who probably don’t (or maybe they do) want to see my paling skin scampering from window to window.  (My conservative flannel pajamas are of course still packed away in the shunned “winter” box.)

In quiet protest to the changing of the seasons, our autumn displays of homegrown pumpkins and gourds are dissolving into piles of rancid mush.  Composting them would signify that it’s time to replace them with evergreen bows and wreaths and other wintry effects.  I’m just not ready.

Despite every glossy magazine cover on my coffee table telling me I should be crafting Christmas ornaments and hankering for the likes of pumpkin cheesecake and caramel macchiatos, I find myself barefoot, sipping mojitos, and flipping through old flower catalogs. 

Late one recent night I slipped on my gardening boots, woke up the dog, and snuck out into the frosty night to gather some still-green spearmint to satisfy my fresh mojito (a.k.a. summer-in-a-glass) craving.  The crickets and swamp frogs were silent.  All I could hear was the subtle rustle of frost-covered blades of grass crumbling beneath my feet and the distant cackling of coyotes. 

I stopped and wondered what stiffened grass would feel like barefoot.  Would it tickle like walking barefoot through a fresh cut hayfield?  Clenching the flashlight between my teeth, I prepared to strike the well-balanced yoga pose needed to extricate a foot from my knee-high rubber boots.  I noticed Maddie, my forever enthusiastic canine companion, give me a confused glance as if to say, “Lady, you’re nuts.  What the heck are we doing out here?”

Maddie is happy to reenact her look of skepticism for a photo

I was lucid enough to know that when your dog thinks you’ve lost your marbles, you probably have, so I kept my boots on, snipped off enough frosty mint for a single mojito and ran back inside.

Like any summer romance that comes to an end, I know that I will find happiness again and it will be sooner than I think.  With the end of one good thing, comes the vacancy for another.  I wouldn’t want it any other way. 

I learned to appreciate seasonal renewal after living in Hawaii for eight terribly confusing seasons, where the only delineation of time was a-little-more-rainy versus a-little-less-rainy.  (Note: Relationship analogy deemed inappropriate for newlywed to ponder.)

When I’m ready, I know I’ll be swept off my feet by the scent of balsam fir and mulled spices, hot cocoa spiked with Bailey’s, and listening to old Christmas records while waiting for the cinnamon rolls to rise on a snowy Sunday morning.  I’ll delight in tobogganing and ice skating and snowshoeing up mountains.   I’ll take my first run down the ski slope and I’ll swear that there’s no better feeling in the world—not even dancing barefoot in a warm summer rain.

I’m hereby acknowledging that my feet are bloody freezing on these cold wood floors.  I think I’ll go dig some wool socks out of the “winter” box and make myself a mug of something warm and gooey.

This question was thrown my way by Fine Gardening magazine. 

The challenging task of narrowing my hoards of garden wishes down to just three inspired a long sentimental journey through all of the intoxicating garden aromas, flavors, touches, romances and beauty that I’ve experienced in my life and dreamed of being able to recreate, relive, or prolong.  I’m such a romantic.

My pragmatic husband pondered this same question for about 1.4 seconds and responded, “1. No more weeds.  2.  No more pests.  3. A 36 horsepower Kubota L-Series tractor.” He gave me a smug glance, as if to say, “That was easy.  What’s your problem?”

“Well, when I do find and articulate my wishes,” I replied, “at least I know they’re going to make for a better story than yours.”

You be the judge.  You can now read my garden wishes, along with the wishes of six other garden bloggers, in the December issue of Fine Gardening out on newsstands now.

Here on my blog, I thought that instead of wining about things I want and don’t have, I’d gush about a few of my garden-related wishes that have come true over the past year.  To allow for the detail that they deserve,  I will share one at a time over the coming weeks.

#1 GARDEN WISH GRANTED: A tropical garden wedding.

It should be of no surprise that my biggest garden-related dream come true was my warm, flowery, flavorful wedding adventure in the South Pacific.  Ten months ago, when Indiana was drooping with a thick layer of ice, I absconded with my Knight-in-Shining-Armor to the warm waters and lush tropical forests of Fiji. 

Forgoing a big traditional wedding allowed us the time, money, and sanity to enjoy two weeks of intimate bliss on Taveuni, the “Garden Isle of Fiji”. 

We made our home at Nakia Resort & Dive, a small eco-resort with ten acres of tropical gardens and an organic farm. It’s a place so wonderful that I actually hesitate to share my secret for fear it becomes too well-known.

On Christmas Eve, among the gardens, on a cliff overlooking the blue waters of Fiji, my dream of a simple, intimate, graceful wedding came true.  The intoxicating aroma of plumerias and gardenias presided over the ceremony. 

Our wedding at Nakia wasn’t just a girl’s dream come true, but a gardener’s dream come true.  Everyday the staff brought us big bouquets of fresh tropical flowers and dappled our cottage with hibiscus and plumeria flowers.  

We spent hours and hours roaming the gardens, fascinated by the intricacies of growing fruits and vegetables year-round in a tropical climate.

And then there was the food.  Wow.  At every meal we indulged in some of the finest and freshest cuisine we’ve ever had.  Most of the ingredients were grown organically just steps from the kitchen. 

When your garden looks like this:

How could you not sing Hallelujah when you’re sitting on a porch being served an organic and locally grown breakfast that looks like this:

Visiting Taveuni was a dream come true for both the lovebird and the gardener within me.

You, me, and my gardens have so much to catch up on.

My neglected grounds. This sunflower sums it up well.

Sometimes I wish I could bookmark my gardens like I do the teetering stack of half-read books on my nightstand.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to occasionally set aside your garden projects, guiltlessly pursue other interests, and then when you’re ready to come back, pick up right where you left off? 

As the peak growing season slowed, my interest in my favorite adrenaline fix—inline skating—began to trump my interest in keeping my gardens weed-free and my blog fresh.  I continued to preserve my veggie harvest (what was left of it anyhow after my hubby’s charity episode), but otherwise spent my weekends logging miles on Indiana’s bike trails.

Cardinal Greenway near Muncie, Indiana.

Now that racing the 26.2-mile Northshore Inline Marathon (again) is crossed off my bucket list, I’m back to being a weekend gardener and blogger.

September skating and beach bumming along Lake Superior.

Unfortunately, I’m definitely not picking up where I left off.  I have 4’-tall weeds, toppled sunflowers, and ripe tomatoes rotting on the vine.  Further emphasizing that it’s not august anymore, Mother Nature welcomed me back to her sport this week with our first hard frost. 

Nothing says summer's over quite like a spent tomato patch.

The challenge is now on to put my strong back and stamina to good use in the garden before the snow flies.  I’d better get to work.

My nightmare in the tomato patch.

After eight months of marriage, my typically flawless husband has finally found my “I-can’t-believe-you-did-that!” button.

The reason behind my recent fury is going to be very difficult for the average person to understand.  But if there’s any outlet for me to rant and possibly get a little sympathy from someone other than my mom, it’s going to be here on my garden blog.

He wasn’t out drinking all night.  He didn’t wager his paycheck playing online poker.  I didn’t find a beef taco under the couch cushion. 

It was so much worse. 

He gave away… gulp… all our ripe tomatoes!!!

Big, beautiful, heirloom brandywine tomatoes in the hands of danger

The story began on Thursday night when I called home from the office to tell my husband that I would be, for the second night in a row, working around the clock in an attempt to meet a completely insane deadline.  (Note to self: send blog link to bosses. Italicize completely insane.)

I immediately perked up from my compu-coma when my hubby mentioned that he was going to pick some vegetables to bring to his close friends at work (i.e. all staff and faculty in his school corporation) the next day.   

Unenthusiastic, but trying not to appear selfish, I said, “Okay, but please don’t give away our tomatoes because I want to make sauce this weekend and I need all the ripe ones that we have.”  I was looking forward to spending my Sunday barefoot in the kitchen, turning our homegrown tomato harvest into homemade awesomeness.

He replied, more or less, “Blah, blah, blah.  There’re plenty.  Blah blah blah.  But Baby, I’m a giver.  You need to be more of a giver. Blah.”

I said, “I’m serious.  I don’t think you realize how many tomatoes it takes to make just one jar of tomato sauce.”

Friday evening I stumbled home from my 60 hour work day and immediately noticed that our kitchen, which typically has fresh produce protruding from every nook and cranny, was uncharacteristically barren. 

“You didn’t give away all our tomatoes did you?”

“No.  Not ALL of them,” he replied matter-of-factly as he handed me TWO of my heirloom tomatoes, undoubtedly saved from his free produce stand only because they were really big and really ugly.

Too tired to argue, I laid my head down on the kitchen table next to one of my thankfully ugly Marvel Stripe heirloom tomatoes, pouted for a minute, and fell asleep.

But when Sunday rolled around, I had regained enough strength to wage my battle. 

While the tomato thief and I rummaged around the patch looking for the “plenty more ripe ones” he had promised, I wore a grimacing frown that every husband should fear.

I prodded for an apology. 

Finally he said, “Okay, I’m sorry, but Baby, they’re just tomatoes.”

“JUST tomatoes?”  I gasped.  “These aren’t JUST tomatoes! These are the heirloom tomatoes that we started from seed on our window sill back in March, built a cold frame for in April, planted in our garden in May and tirelessly tended to through the frosts, storms, droughts and bug infestations of June, July, and August.  These are the tomatoes that were to be the main ingredient, and a rather important one at that, in the homemade tomato sauce that I was to spend my day therapeutically smelling and stirring for hours and hours.  This was to be the sauce that would forever dispel my pressurecookerphobia. ”

Never again shall these babies be mistaken as "just tomatoes"

When I saw I wasn’t reaching him with sentimentality, I tried to reach him with numbers.

“Do you understand the investment I’ve made in this tomato sauce already?  I’ve spent $10 on seeds and supplies, $30 for a canning class, $40 on a blanching pot, $70 on a pressure canner and now I have two tomatoes to work with?  That’s about $150 for a scant ½ jar of sauce!  And you thought Bill Alexander’s $64 dollar tomato was ridiculous?”

We picked a meager 6.5 pounds of ripe-ish tomatoes that morning.  I needed 30. 

He said, “I’ll get you more tomatoes.”

“It’s not the same,” I sulked.  And sulked.  And sulked.

The incident has left me to wonder if I am over-reacting or if any gardener would feel the same hurt and fury if the harvest she has mothered for months is taken away?  I realize that in the grand scheme of things, these were in fact just tomatoes.  But in my world, they were far more than that. 

A few final words to my tomato thief:

I’m sorry for breaking our agreement that you get to edit blogs written about your character, but hey, I also thought we had an agreement that you wouldn’t give away all the tomatoes.  Truce? 

Although I will forever contend that our homegrown tomatoes are not just tomatoes, I do thank you for the 30 pounds of substitutes that you brought home from your brother’s garden Sunday afternoon.  I just hope he asked his wife first.

You apologize to your two loyal readers for the scarcity of your recent posts and then you offer restitution:  your original, highly coveted, never-before-unveiled, crowd-pleasing, stress-releasing, taste-bud-teasing AWESOME recipe for homemade Blueberry Ginger Mojitos.  Warning: This drink may change your life.

I know that it’s a little late in the season for most of you to get fresh local blueberries, but practicing with either imported or frozen berries will get you well-trained for next season.

The special ingredient in this mojito recipe is homemade ginger syrup, which replaces the usual simple syrup or sugar.  It’s easy to make, and if you like ginger, you’ll love having a jar of this in your refrigerator.  I’m now in the habit of livening up ice tea with a little shot of sweet ginger.  It also makes a divine addition to a standard fruit salad—along with a little mint.  It can be stored in the refrigerator for up to two weeks or frozen for future use. 

Secret ingredients: fresh blueberry juice and ginger syrup

FRESH BLUEBERRY GINGER MOJITOS

For a single mojito:

Juice from 1/2 of a fresh lime
10-12 fresh spearmint leaves, torn
About 10 fresh (or frozen) whole blueberries
2 oz ginger syrup (see below)
2 oz blueberry juice (see below)
2 oz white rum

Club soda

Drop fresh blueberries one-by-one into the bottom of a 16 oz. glass or mason jar, repeating “kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk” with each blueberry until finished*.  Add the lime juice, mint leaves and ginger syrup.  Muddle with a twisting motion to release the essential oils in the mint and lime.  Fill the glass with ice, add the blueberry juice, the rum, and then top it off with club soda.  Like fresh strawberry mojitos, this is a really refreshing and enjoyable drink in a virgin state as well. 

* Just a little shout out to my favorite children’s book Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey.  Also an incredibly easy way to annoy your husband while picking blueberries.

GINGER SYRUP

2 cups thinly sliced fresh ginger, unpeeled (about ½ lb.)
3 cups water
2 cups sugar

Bring ginger and water to a boil in a medium saucepan.  Stir in sugar until dissolved.  Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring frequently.  Remove from heat and let steep for 20 minutes.  Pour mixture through a sieve, discarding ginger.  Chill.

BLUEBERRY JUICE

Adding a couple of ounces of blueberry juice to this mojito gives it a beautiful deep burgundy color and also ensures that the blueberry flavor isn’t lost among the other flavors of the drink.  I don’t sweeten the blueberry juice because I find there’s enough sweetness from the ginger syrup.

TIP: It's best not to leave simmering ginger or blueberries unattended at any time.

 2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
1 cup water

Combine blueberries and water in a medium saucepan.  Bring to boil and then simmer about 10 minutes until blueberries are soft.  Cool.  Pour mixture through a sieve.  For a clearer juice, subsequently pour through cheese cloth.  Use leftover juice for blueberry martinis, iced tea flavoring, or pure and simple antioxidant shots.

Now, get out a pitcher, multiply this recipe by 5, invite a friend, and meet them in the garden.

This WWII era poster supports my notion that using a pressure canner is like going to war in your own kitchen

I equate using a pressure cooker to playing with matches and dynamite… at the same time.  I know I’m being slightly irrational, but I’ve been conditioned to believe that at any given second this metal capsule may explode, turning my home into the likes of a war zone, blasting glass shrapnel and tomato innards everywhere.

The funny thing is I’ve never even used a pressure cooker.  This is because as a kid I wasn’t allowed in the kitchen while my mom canned our garden vegetables.  (She was convinced that at any given second her metal capsule may explode, turning her home into the likes of a war zone, blasting glass shrapnel and tomato innards everywhere.) 

I recently probed my Mom about this communicable cautiousness (read: neuroticism) and she said that she never had any mishaps in all the years that she canned, but that she inherited her fear of disaster from her Mom.  Ah ha, I see a pattern. This fear of explosion was further traced back to my great grandmother, Dorothy, who I learned did indeed have a substantiated fear of her pressure cooker.  The cause is undocumented, but the resulting post traumatic stress has now spanned four generations. 

At least this WWII poster didn’t try to hide the overwhelming and frightening nature of pressure canning… it’s written all over her pretty face

One summer afternoon long long ago, a young Dorothy was canning beets in her kitchen. Something went awry and glass jars began exploding and beet guts spewed like Old Faithful from the cooker’s steam vent. 

We all know how upsetting it is to burn a batch of cookies.  Now just imagine if those burnt cookies threw a firecracker at your feet, spat in your face, leapt off the tray, and smeared themselves all over your wallpapered kitchen.  I don’t cry over spilt milk, but I think I’d cry over this.

I don’t remember my Great Grandmother Dorothy, but she’s had a profound impact on my food preserving endeavors.  I’m sure this wasn’t the legacy she wanted to pass on to her great grandchildren and it’s certainly not the legacy I want to continue.

Taking the first step on my road to pressurecookerphobia freedom, I recently went to a 3-hour “Canning for Beginners” class.  The mandatory waiver I had to sign didn’t downplay the potentially risky behavior I was about to partake in.  As a small herd of menopausal women crowed into a sweltering hot kitchen, my life hot-flashed ahead 25 years and I couldn’t help but wonder why I was interested in canning carrots (risking “permanent injury or even death”) and not drinking 2-for-1 daiquiris at Ruby Tuesdays with other people my age. 

Then I saw our instructor—a vibrant woman with long blonde hair, a petite figure, a glowing complexion and who appeared far too young to be gushing over her grandchildren.  She made me wonder if I dedicate myself now to growing, preserving and eating healthy, homegrown, organic produce, I can look like her in 20 years.  Probably not, but I’m a believer in long-term goal setting.

Watching her dance calmly (and barefoot!) among the steaming kettles eased my fears even more than her verbal lessons.

The #1 piece of advice I received that evening was that mom’s way isn’t always the best way.  When doing something because “that’s the way my Mom always did it,” you have to realize that that your mom is doing it the way your Grandma did, and Grandma did as Great Grandma did, and so on.  While there are plenty of good tips and tricks to learn from our elders, we shouldn’t ignore the many advances in food preservation equipment and scientific research in recent years.  Doing something just because “that’s the way Mom did it” can lead to a beet juice shower… or worse.

And if patriotism doesn't inspire your victory garden, the thought of your children starving surely will. Fascinating marketing.

I went home and promptly put the strawberry jam that I had recently made without processing (that’s the way Grandma always did it!)  into a hot water bath. (Apparently bacteria don’t give a crap if you flip your hot jars of jam upside down and cover them with a dish towel.)

So now I need to decide (very quickly because the tomatoes are ripening) whether to try and find a new pressure gauge and seals for the old hand-me-down 20-quart Presto collecting dust in our basement or whether to take my own advice and buy a new pressure cooker altogether.  Has anyone canned with an electric pressure cooker?  I need advice!

Harvesting our garden produce and admiring its growth spurt after returning from our summer vacation

This may-like motivation is the result of returning home from my July vacation and being thrilled with all the new blooms and the plethora of harvestable goods.  It’s easy to overlook the small daily changes in your garden, but after a longer absence, it’s awe-striking how quickly plant life changes. 

Of course abandoning my homestead in the peak of growing season isn’t easy.

Two summer vacations ago, I had just moved my army of veggie and flower containers from my apartment patio to my new country home.  Doug (my boyfriend) and I set up an automatic sprinkler system to care for them in our absence.  We returned to find that our irrigation had malfunctioned (on day 1) and my beloved companions were limp and barely clinging to life. 

Still recovering from my losses, last summer I left Doug (my fiancé) at home to tend to the gardens while I vacationed solo.

This summer I thought I’d better reprioritize the people and plants in my life.  After all, it would be a little awkward to leave Doug (my husband) at home to water the tomatoes while I attended the wedding party thrown in our honor.  So I settled for plan C… hired help. 

We left our container gardens, our 100 potted mums and our dog in the care of one brave friend.  (In hindsight, I also wish we’d left our weeds in his care.)  On our drive home from the airport I made the prediction that we were more at risk to find our plants drowning than wilting.  I think that caretakers are so afraid of under-doing that they over-do.  I was kinda right.  Our plants looked happy and lush, but our Maddie waddled up to us looking uncharacteristically plump. 

Plucking basil leaves for pesto with one very happy canine

Now it’s catch up time.  For the past few days, we’ve been scrambling to dig the rest of the potatoes and onions, freeze sweet corn (before the birds eat it all), broccoli (before the worms eat it all), basil pesto (before the Japanese beetles eat it all), and blueberries (before I eat them all). 

It’s good to be home.

Now,  about those weeds…

This is why you need me.

However pretty your flowers may be, I can think of no circumstances where it's appealing to accent your garden with a used (ewww!) toilet.

I’m here to stage an intervention.  You need to hear the truth about your addiction to ornate lawn ornamentation and how this kind of visual pollution is making me feel.

I’m not usually this openly critical, but you need to hear the truth.  Ninety-nine percent of your lawn ornaments are ugly, borderline grotesque, and you’re not just hurting yourself, you’re hurting everyone close to you.

There is nothing retro cool about granny fannies or hot pink flamingos—they’re cheesy—they’re campy—they’ve got to go.

Ornately ornamenting your landscape is an iconic symbol of trash culture, and although I’m willing to overlook your obsession with NASCAR, I just can’t turn my back and let you defile what little natural beauty you have left.

Surely, Michelangelo’s ghost would be enraged if he saw pint-size quasi-replicas of his masterpieces being peed on by labradoodles in the yards of cookie-cutter homes all across Indiana. This is the very reason that I don’t believe in ghosts, but if I’m wrong, you’d better be praying to your lawn Jesus that the maddened spirits of real artists spare you and your poor taste.

Lawn porn. Umm... Gross.

Yards are not supposed to be extensions of coffee tables; they are supposed to be transition landscapes.  I just happen to know a thing or two about creating outdoor landscapes that serve to blur the frontier between the natural and built environment. 

There is nothing even remotely natural about armies of lawn gnomes guarding purple gazing balls perched on dolphin pedestals. 

I understand that this will be a difficult transition for you, so I’m recommending step one to get you started down the road to recovery.   If you have an object in your yard that is any color that you’d find in a bag of tropical skittles, a lifeless version of an otherwise live animal, is created through the process of polymerization, or is in the act of squatting, peeing, or mooning… it’s gotta go.  (To the dumpster that is—not to next weekend’s yard sale—that would be counterproductive since you know Bobby Jean has her eye on your sunbathing gopher.)

If you really can’t eliminate all of the flamboyant bad taste from your life, please, for the sake of your caring neighbors, i.e. myself, at least try to confine your kitschy “art” to your toilet mantle and other confined spaces.

If you are still in a state of denial and you’re harboring any of the following items, please contact me for further consultation and personal support. I am here for you.

Oh, and just for the record, I completely support lawn ornament theft.  Even by teenagers who drink a wee too much Boone’s Farm and steal Granny’s polka dotted mushrooms for their closet collections.  I’m fine with it.

And to all you non-Midwesterners who continue to give me crap for living in Indiana, (you know who you are)… clearly, they need me here.

Dad at home in Vermont with Sobie (that four-legged dark shadow) and his mums

I learned my most valuable gardening skill from my dad—patience.  You’ve never known patience until you’ve known my dad.  I consider myself blessed to have inherited just a fraction of his calm perseverance.  I may be content pulling garden weeds by hand, but Dad exudes joy “brush hogging” his 5-acre field with a hand scythe.  (He had his scythe custom made based on his body measurements. Seriously.) 

My Dad epitomizes all the sayings about life being a journey, not a destination.  This admirable trait makes him a skilled gardener, my favorite hiking partner, and a role model of a father.

The first true test of my gardening patience was supposed to come from our recent conversion of ½ acre of our yard to a native prairie.  It normally takes a few years for prairie plants to establish their deep root systems and begin putting substantial energy into flowering.  (This is a big commitment on my part considering the last time I even lived at same address for more than two years, I was in high school and living under my dad’s roof.)  I had fully braced myself for enduring years of patient weeding with a slow rate of return.  Our native prairie seed mix was augmented with a couple of annual species (corn poppies and cosmos) for people not lucky enough to possess my dad’s gardening patience… like my husband whose reaction to undertaking this project was something like “WHAT!!?? We don’t even know if we’ll be living here in three years!”

Diverse native prairie currently exhibiting as a monoculture of poppies.

Wowza!  I’m pretty sure this isn’t normal.  We have ourselves one massive display of poppies.  My husband is thrilled; I’m frantically searching for natives in the understory of the poppy canopy.  Now we’re  just waiting for the sheriff to show up thinking we’re farming its illicit relative.

I turn my nose up at the likes of roses, peonies and daylilies because I view them as too traditional and mainstream for my young, eco-minded gardens.  That said, you might find it peculiar that I’m propagating chrysanthemums.  I blame it on my dad and the serious case of nostalgia I have for my flowerful childhood at Maidstone Plant Farm.  My dad does an exquisite job growing 1500-2000 hardy potted mums every year in his front yard. Summer just doesn’t feel like summer to me without mums to fuss over.  Here’s the band-aid for my nostalgia. 

However, I am adding my own twist on mum propagation techniques.  In an effort to green up the otherwise not-so-sustainable process of growing these water and fertilizer needy plants, I started by making my own soil mixture using nutrient-rich composted biosolids.  We’re trying to capture and reuse rainwater runoff from our barn roof to irrigate the mums (but this saga deserves it own blog post.)  The mums are also in re-used tree pots from a local nursery.  I know I’ll never get them to Dad’s level of perfection, but it’s fun trying.

The spring rush of greens, strawberries, and peas is winding down and I fear we are approaching that notorious 2-3 week lull where our biggest harvest will be weeds and mosquito bites. 

As always, I planted way too many leafy greens that all peaked at exactly the same time.  There are only so many bowls of leafy green things you can make your husband eat.

Rainbow Swiss Chard, Spinach, French Mesclun, A Heirloom Cutting Mix, and Grand Rapids Lettuce

Last year I overloaded this planter along our garden shed with colorful annuals, but this year I’m enjoying this understated display of miniature sunflowers.

"Junior" Container Sunflower

This is the butterfly garden that we planted last summer with about 20 species of native, local-genotype wildflowers and grasses.  It was the perfect spot to plant locally-adapted natives because it’s too far from the house for a hose to reach. We watered this garden once—the day we planted the small plugs.  In bloom are Penstemon digitalis (Foxglove Beard Tongue), Coreopsis Lanceolata (Lance-leaved Tickseed), and Echinacea pallida (Pale Purple Coneflower). 

The "butterfly garden"

Making a decorative succulent mixed container was somewhere near the bottom of my summer to-do list, but when I saw this one for $20 at Meijer this spring I couldn’t resist buying it.  Impulse buying is NOT something my Dad taught me; hence I do it with the same care he puts into buying hiking boots.  This container makes the perfect low-profile centerpiece for the dining table on our hot, south-facing deck. 

My mixed combos on the deck have traditionally been bursting with color, but now that the surrounding perennial gardens are offering more interest, I’m toning down the containers and featuring contrasting chartreuse and burgundy foliage.  They look really sharp against the dark wood.

This is my favorite view.  I spend a lot of time just sitting here at our kitchen table looking out over our gardens, quietly dreaming and scheming with a luke warm cup of coffee.  This introspective habit, without a doubt, came from my Dad.  The kitchen table was, and still is, the center of his home and the catchall of his life. 

I wish I could’ve spent Father’s Day sitting around his kitchen table talking (or silently reflecting as we often do) about gardens and mountains, but I know that there’s a piece of him in the gardens that I tend to everyday, and I’d like to think that there’s a piece of me in some of his.  (I definitely know there’s a piece of me in those fields of tansy he’s scything, but that’s a story for another day.)

This post was brought to you by the dog Maddie and the flower Poppy.

I was an impressionable 15-year old when the movie How to Make an American Quilt changed my innocent world forever.

One movie scene with a smoldering hot strawberry farmer seducing Winona Ryder with—you guessed it—a strawberry, instigated my irrepressible lust for the soft curves of this sweet fruit… (and tall, dark, handsome men.)

Oysters need not apply.

Store-bought strawberries in January do little to whet my appetite, but sweet and juicy locally grown strawberries in early June make me weak in the knees.

Three Junes ago, when still living in my own apartment, I bought about 15 strawberry runners from a local farm market and planted them in window boxes on my little patio. 

Doug and I had just started dating, so you can just imagine my delight when I returned from my summer vacation to discover that not only did this courter of mine keep my patio plants alive, but he had built an ingenius space-saving pyramid for my strawberry boxes. 

He must have realized that the way to my heart was through my strawberries.  Smart man.  I deemed him a keeper. 

Those same plants and their offspring are now our strawberries and make their home in a 4’ x 12’ raised bed in our garden.  They are producing an astonishing large harvest for a seemingly small area.  Hallelujah!  (Maybe it was the bunny fertilizer.)

We're getting about 3 quarts of strawberries every couple of days. Our secret? Rich black topsoil and composted horse manure.

I’ve managed to incorporate strawberries into nearly every meal I’ve eaten for the past two weeks.

I’m pretty sure that my dirty blonde hair is now strawberry blonde and the cause of those red-eyes in all my photos is no light reflection phenomenon.  I am the essence of strawberries.

One of my favorite fresh strawberry recipes is, believe it or not, a cocktail.  A fresh strawberry mojito on a sunny June afternoon is like a romance novel in a glass. 

Here’s my recipe for pleasure: 

FRESH STRAWBERRY MOJITO

Juice from 1/2 of a fresh lime
10-12 fresh spearmint leaves, torn
3 fresh voluptuous strawberries
2 teaspoons of fine sugar
2 oz white rum

Club soda

Mojitos in the making

Throw the lime juice, mint, 2 strawberries and sugar into a 12 oz. tumbler glass and muddle with a twisting motion to release the essential oils in the mint and lime.  (Muddling is a fancy bartending term for mushing.  There are real muddling tools, but I just use the handle of a wooden spoon.)  Fill the glass with ice, add the rum, and then top it off with club soda, slices of the remaining strawberry, and a sprig of mint for garnish.  The amount of rum you add can be adjusted for your taste (and your to-do list).  I don’t normally say this, but I find this strawberry mojito to be just as pleasing in a virgin state.  (A virgin mojito may also increase the chances that you’ll return to your garden chores after reaching the bottom of your glass.)

Cheers!

Uhh Oh. My shadow has learned just how tasty strawberries off the vine can be.