In May my gardening smugness changes to wistfulness. It’s planting month for summer crops — tomatoes, squash, corn, beans, melons, peppers, and eggplant. These vegetables start taking root now, if they haven’t received a head start on sunny windowsills. But our temperate climate, which allows me to grow crops all through the winter, is a tad too cool for some of summer’s best.
In San Mateo I can grow tomatoes, which won’t produce in many neighborhoods of San Francisco. Beans perform well, as do zucchini (where don’t they?), pumpkins, and jalapeño peppers. Not so for corn, melons, bell peppers, and eggplant. As much as I’d like to pick my entire ingredient list for ratatouille from my garden, or bite into corn boiled less than a minute after it was picked, I can’t.
I also can’t grow those lovely green, yellow, and striped heirloom tomatoes that crowd the farmers market tables in August. My garden harbors a fungus causing any tomato plant that isn’t disease-resistant to whither and die. But plain-vanilla tomatoes, ripened on the vine, are still really, really good.
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Consider yourself lucky, Girl! It's too cold out here on the coast to grow anything but chives, oregano, and thyme. I used to grow parsley until the deer discovered it.
ReplyDeleteM-m-m. Parsley-fed venison.
ReplyDeleteHay, Mandy, are lemon cukes in the mix?
Call me sour, but my summer vegie curve is trending toward pickles. Just sayin' in case you have more than your family can handle…
I forgot to mention I planted cukes, but they're not lemon cukes. Will other cukes do? Last year I had more than the entire neighborhood could handle.
ReplyDelete