Flowers, Food, and Family

Waking up at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

There are certain summer smells that fall into a special category in that first they delight me, then they become only tolerable, and finally I grow so weary of them, I rejoice when they are gone. I experienced two of them last week – cooking tomatoes and canning pickle relish. Monday I went out in the gloom of an overcast morning and picked our first big batch of tomatoes. I brought them in, cleaned and chopped them and set them to cook. When they were soft, I milled them and reduced them down into sauce. The aroma of boiling tomatoes filled the house and it smelled like ripeness and bounty and all the good things of summer. And I don’t even like tomatoes. Later in the summer, when I’m boiling down my 20th batch, they won’t smell as good to me. By then I’ll be ready for it to end.

A sink full of tomatoes.

Milling cooked tomatoes.

On that same gray Monday morning, I also assembled the makings for our first batch of relish. I had the cucumbers already. I picked a dozen bell peppers from out in the big garden and then pulled a dozen onions from my raised bed garden. On Tuesday I ground them all up (missing Josiah the whole time), salted it all and let it sit overnight. Then on Wednesday I finished it and canned it. Canning relish is a wonderful smell. It is tangy and sweet and it makes me hungry for a cookout with hot dogs and all the fixings. But by the time we’re canning our 5th or 6th batch, I’ll be tired of it.

Relish ingredients waiting for the grinder.

Ground, raw relish.

Cooking applesauce is another smell that I love at first and then get tired of. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll have enough apples this year for that to even happen. We might get enough apples for one batch of applesauce this year if we’re lucky and I’m sad about that.

On a morning walk.

There are some summer smells I never get tired of. I have a potted night-blooming jasmine (Cestrum nocturnum) on the back porch steps and its perfume after dark is intoxicating. I have big potted angel’s trumpets (Brugmansia) that have just begun to bloom. Their huge trumpet flowers smell sweet and citrusy at night. And this year I dedicated one of my raised beds to growing carnations. I love all the flowers in the dianthus family – pinks, sweet Williams, and especially carnations. The ones I’m growing are not the huge blooms you get from a florist. They are smaller, but they have that sweet clove fragrance I love. They have just begun to bloom right now, but there are hundreds and hundreds of buds and that makes me happy.

My night-blooming jasmine.

First flowers on one of my angels trumpets.

I pulled up my shallots on Monday too. This is the first time I’ve grown shallots. I read about them as I was perusing a plant catalog back in late winter and thought I’d give them a try. Growing them was the same as onions but, unlike onions, they form multi-bulb clumps. I have them curing in the woodshed now. I’ll be interested to see what they taste like. According to the catalog, they are like a blend of onion and garlic only mellower than onion and less pungent than garlic. Sounds delicious.

Shallots.

There are many things I take delight in – things like a good book, great music, and beautiful art and scenery, but three of my greatest delights are flowers, food, and family. Flowers were the first things I ever tried to grow back in the very beginning of my gardening days. I received a book as a Christmas gift when I was about eleven or twelve that listed hundreds of garden flowers with photos and descriptions. It was the first of the many gardening books I’ve collected over the years and the beginning of my interest and love for flowers. Every garden I’ve planted in every place I’ve ever lived has been at least half flowers and half fruits and vegetables. Until this year with the expansion of the big garden next door, I had more flowers than vegetables in my garden. My delight in them seems to outweigh my enjoyment of food as I grow older.

Rudbeckia and coneflowers.

Tall phlox.

But I do love food. I love to grow plants and turn them into food. I love to eat food (you can tell by just looking at me). It seems to me that the food I make out of the things I grow tastes better. My sense of accomplishment makes them more delicious. Sometimes when we sit down to dinner, we like to analyze the meal to see how much of it came from our gardens and animals. For some meals in a good year, that can often run to 90%. If you add in the things we get locally like milk and meat, sometimes it’s almost 100%. We haven’t figured out how to produce things like flour, sugar, or salt, and we can’t produce exotic spices like pepper, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. If I had a heated greenhouse, I’d grow tropical things like ginger, pineapples, bananas, figs, avocados, and other fruit. You can tell by my descriptions of any of our family gatherings that food plays an important part in all we do.

We had a houseful of family last week. Miriam arrived with Rachel and her children on Monday afternoon. The Shilligs had Kohl and her children next door. And on Friday, Kale and her family arrived. The cousins loved playing together. The Shilligs have great things to keep the children entertained – electric bikes, the little Gator, the hover board, a trampoline, and their swing set. Kurt went the extra mile this summer. He made a big slip-and-slide over on the slope by the big garden. Then on Tuesday he put up a zip line between two big trees. Both were a big hit with the kids. On Wednesday and Friday we got to go swimming at the Rigases’ pool. There were craft projects for the children – tie-dying shirts and painting bird houses.

Florence and Mabel in the Gator.

Hazel on the zip line.

Uncle Kurt's slip-and-slide.

Tie-dyed shirts.

Painting project.

And, of course, there was great food all week. On Tuesday for dinner Rachel made chicken tikka masala and Miriam made naan bread. On Wednesday evening we had dinner out at the fire pit with roasted hot dogs, potato and pasta salads, watermelon, and brownies. On Thursday we ate at the fire pit again with homemade pizza and salads and brownies. On Friday we had fried chicken and smashed potatoes and on Saturday the Shilligs hosted a sumptuous taco fiesta.

Food.

Food.

And more food.

But it was not all fun and games last week, we did some work too. We had lots of helpers with garden and harvest work. Julie had help picking peas. On Wednesday I had the Thayn girls and their cousin Vea help me pull up the carrots. Then in the evening Stacey had helpers working on cutting and dicing the carrots. I had help doing the chores, feeding the chickens, and collecting the eggs. On Friday I trimmed the garlic that had been curing over in the pavilion. I dug some potatoes and picked more cucumbers. We picked our first sweet corn.

My carrot helpers.

The carrot harvest.

Slicing and dicing carrots with Grandma.

Helping Aunt Julie pick peas.

Florence picking tomatoes.

My egg collectors.

First sweet corn of the season!

Although the days have been pleasantly warm, our nights have been chilly, even cold. Too cold for August. Yesterday morning when I woke up the thermometer read 36°. By the time I went out on my walk, it had warmed to 40°. I went straight to the big garden to see if there had been frost. It sits out in the open and there is a low spot where cold air settles – right where the squash and melon patches are, the most cold sensitive of all my plants. I was relieved to find no damage. But it was disturbing to feel such cold in mid-August with so much of the harvest still ahead of us.

A cool and foggy morning.

A sunset last week.

This morning the Thayns left for home. When we came home from church and it was just the four of us, the house seemed quiet and sad. But we will see them later this week – in Idaho! Josiah is getting married this Saturday in Pocatello. We are leaving on Thursday to fly out. The Thayns are leaving on Wednesday to drive out. Other family members are driving and flying and we will all be there this weekend. Kurt and Julie are minding things here while we are gone and I’m thankful for that. We won’t be home again until the 24th, so the next Potter County Journal will be late, but it will be full of family fun and photos.