Nursery Rhyme Time

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary. How does your garden grow?”

“Like an out-of-control jungle, that’s how!” (I’ve resisted working this little jingle into my column for years, and aren’t you sorry I finally succumbed?)

In place of silver bells and cockleshells, I have sunflowers, moon flowers, baby’s breath, bachelor buttons, and zinnias planted. They’re supposed to draw in bees, and I have seen bumblebees stumbling along the ground. The flowers are being slow to produce blooms. I hope these hot, sunny days give them a huge boost in growth.

All the rain we’ve had has made my drip system superfluous - so far. Eventually Mother Nature will turn off the tap and I’ll be glad I made the effort to install it before planting anything.

The heat is on (where have I heard that, Pointer Sisters?), and the corn is shooting up. I swear it was only 6” tall when I weeded between the rows last week. It’s well above knee-high now. The peas are forming rapidly. Their vines are covering the 4’ fences they’re planted beside. The leaf lettuces are trying to bolt, so I’m cutting a lot of it off and dumping it on the ground as mulch. I hope it will rebound and give me later cuttings. The radishes all bolted immediately. I think I had three useable radishes.

The green onions are already huge, almost too large for munching. Since they really need thinning in order for large bulbs to form, I’m still pulling and using them. Even when too big to eat as is, they chop nicely into whatever I’m cooking. The beets and turnips also need thinning. I can only grate so many turnips into my lettuces for a peppery bite to the salad, so I’m looking for other ways to enjoy them. I know buttered beets are great. Perhaps I’ll like turnips getting the same treatment?

There is one large head of broccoli ready, so I plan to roast that today. There were white cabbage moths fluttering over the row containing my cruciferous plants the other day. That row got a nice dusting of Sevin yesterday morning. I skipped over that large broccoli though.

Roasted Broccoli

4 pounds broccoli, trimmed (8C)

4 cloves garlic, sliced

EVOO OR coconut oil

1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper

2 tsp lemon zest

2 Tbl lemon juice

1/3 C freshly grated parmesan

Oven at 425°. Put broccoli on rimmed sheet pan in a single layer. Sprinkle on garlic slices and drizzle with oil. Season with salt and pepper. Roast 20-25 minutes until crisp/tender and tips are browned. Toss with 1 1/2 Tbl oil, zest, juice, and cheese. Serve hot.

I’m halving the recipe, since Dennis won’t even try broccoli. And I’m going to use the air fryer to prevent overheating my kitchen. And it should take a lot less time, I think.

I’m pleased to see tomatoes and peppers starting to form. I’m more than ready for a fresh tomato/mozzarella/balsamic vinegar mix with crusty sourdough. (There’s a two-week hiatus from the Whole Life Challenge right now. I’m taking advantage of that before the next four-week session starts on the 18th.) Peppers stuffed with goat cheese and roasted are heavenly.

The cucumber plants seem to be stunted this year. None of the pumpkins I started from seed survived the move to outdoors. In fact, a lot of the seeds I bought from Seeds N Such fizzled out. I won’t be a customer of theirs again, even though they refunded some money. I’d rather have vigorous plants than my money back and my time and efforts wasted.

Luckily, I’d saved seeds from a couple varieties of squash I’d grown last year. I should get some nice delicatas and crooknecks. They’re flowering now. The potatoes growing in pots are thriving, as are the few I put in the ground next to those pots. In fact, it’s time to go add more soil to those pots. There are also more weeds to eradicate. There is a ton of mowing to do. I plan to mow over the Shasta daisies that are going to seed. The columbine is also going to seed and needs to be deadheaded. I guess I’ll get to work.