thoughts

I always knew I wanted to have a garden of my own someday. I have strong memories of the green beans and tomatoes in mom's garden, of making strawberry jam, doing our own canning, picking cherries and plums. But I never knew how much I would enjoy having my own garden. I feel such a peace sitting on the garden wall in the cool of evening, listening to the birds, snapping green beans and watching the bees bumble in the cucumber blossoms, the smell of basil and mint growing. I usually feel pretty indifferent about cooking (and it shows) but now that I'm trying to put something from the garden into a meal every day (even if it's just one fresh herb), I feel so much more involved, interested, and creative about cooking.

I love involving Isa in the whole process, so that she understands where food comes from. She is always eager to put scraps on the compost heap for me, and knows it "makes food for the plants". She helps dig the soil, drop in the seeds, water the plants, pull the weeds, pick the produce, wash it off and eat it! Funny thing, she never used to like pizza much at all. But yesterday we picked handfuls of fresh basil, layered it on a plain cheese pizza with chopped tomatoes and a bit of swiss (all from the grocery except the herb) and she helped with every part of the picking, cleaning, and pizza assembly, and ate two whole slices. I was so pleased.

And it makes me feel so satisfied and rich in a way, to hold the garden products in my hands. Today we picked cucumbers, another zucchini (bound for cookies again!), peas (great steamed w/their pods and lightly salted) and Isa found some flowers in the weeds along the back fence. It all looked so pretty I took a picture to share with you. And now I'll stop yammering about the garden. Alfonso is sick of hearing it! (He likes to eat what I produce, but it bores him silly to hear the details of how it's grown.)