Quieting Life

Garden Report: July 30

Every gardener I talk to says the same thing, even the professional growers. Sure, endless watering because it refused to rain (the drought finally broke last week)...but holy crap the bugs. I've been gardening for 25 years, and I've never felt so under assault. That fella there in the picture is a red-legged grasshopper, measuring over 2 inches long. There are dozens like him out in the yard, each capable of devouring many times his body weight in tasty plant material every day. Add to that his lesser cousins, numbering in the thousands. Factor in the flea, tortoise, and cucumber beetles, the cabbage loopers and moth worms, centi- and millipedes, slugs and snails, all in quantities enough to make me queasy; it's a wonder there's a single leaf left. But.

I am vigilant. I prevail. And my garden thrives, flourishes – and feeds us.

Little Darlings

There's nothing from the garden I look forward to more than the first sweet tender English peas. Perfect ripe cherry tomato after a year-long wait? Sure, but cracking open a fat green pod and swiping a handful of sweet little pearls right into my mouth is, for me, the garden's greatest reward. Until I figured out how to grow enough of them to satisfy my greed, I'd often eat most of them right from the vine. Now I gang-plant a full bed and have enough for several fresh-from-the-garden dinners plus a couple of pounds to freeze for safekeeping. It's become tradition to serve our own peas with Christmas dinner every year, whatever else may be on the menu.

For the last 3 years, we've gone off to Maine for the week of July 4th, and I'm always sure the peas will peak while we're away and be dried and shriveled by the time we get home. But each year, they've held back through the blasting heat only to welcome us home with handfuls of perfect pods.

A Better Burger Bun

A few weeks ago, I had thawed some nice grass-fed ground beef for hamburgers and needed to pick up some buns. I'm in the habit of buying the ones from the grocery-store bakery (lacking any good local bakeries that would bake them from scratch), but as I reached for the package that afternoon, the thought crossed my mind that I should be making my own. I have a perfectly good recipe, proven and simple. So here you are, just in time for 4th of July cookouts.