The Power of Mother Nature

A view of the storm clouds from my front door

A thunderstorm woke me up this morning.

It's unusual for a storm this size and strength to come through this area. Even more unusual for us is to have a thunderstorm also drop so much rain, especially in August. How unusual? I haven't seen a storm like this in my lifetime. The last time we had a storm that even came remotely close, I was a little girl experiencing my first thunderstorm and saw lightning strike the flagpole at the high school near my parents' house. It was an early lesson on the power of Mother Nature. My mom's enthusiasm for stormy weather was in full swing that night, and I think it was contagious. I've been fascinated with thunderstorms ever since. 

A gardener quickly learns that she is at the mercy of Mother Nature every day. We have no control over heat waves, dry winters, cold snaps, sudden downpours, or thunderstorms. We plant with care, feed and water our gardens, treat plant diseases as best we can, maybe talk to our plants, and...that's where our control ends. We cannot fight the weather, and we have to take our metaphorical punches if it all goes cattywampus. If Mother Nature is not too unkind, our plants will flourish. And if not...

...well, you may have to start over.

Right now, I'm worried about some of my veggies, the spaghetti squash in particular. We've been treating the leaves for powdery mildew (a tough plant disease to get rid of if it's allowed to spread too far), and I worry that too much moisture will exacerbate the problem beyond our ability to treat it. We have a few squash very close to harvest, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they pull through. Tomatoes, in my experience, are very fussy about getting watered on their leaves (they hate it--always water them at the base of the plant), so I hope ours don't protest the rain too much and still decide to continue producing their lovely fruits for us to enjoy.

We'll go out and check the garden once the storm passes on. For now, I'll sit and catch the flashes of lightning, and listen to the booms of thunder.

Homemade Fine Dining

Mom and I love to cook for other people. Before the pandemic, we would have dinners every so often that we would plan elaborate menus for and cook amazing food to share with loved ones. Obviously, that isn't really happening. Scooter is considered an essential worker, so he's been going to work everyday and missing out on our twice-weekly lunches in the garden. He's been hearing me talk about what we enjoy at lunch, and I know he's been feeling a little left out. He needed to work on my parents' RV this last weekend, so Mom and I decided that we would give him a fancy lunch to enjoy after he was done working.

We planned a multi-course Italian luncheon with dishes that we could incorporate ingredients from the garden into. We used fresh herbs, different textures, different flavors, and made everything from scratch. Mom and I wanted to especially highlight our tomatoes, which are starting to arrive in earnest. We delved into our wine inventory to find perfect wines to pair with the meal. I carefully chose the silverware and flatware, the glasses, and the napkins with everything color-coordinated. To make it even more like a fancy restaurant, I used a Canva template to create a menu--in Italian of course. Collectively, it was an homage to the meals Mom and I had planned and shared when things were still "normal."

For the food enthusiasts, I'm posting pictures of all of our food. We like to pull out all the stops. If you are interested in a specific recipe, mention it in the comments and I can include it in a future post.

Bruschetta made with zucchini, shallot, and tomato (all from the garden),
topped with basil and fresh-grated parmigiano reggiano

Tuscan melon with prosciutto di parma

Black Krim heirloom tomatoes from the garden with fresh mozarella
and basil, with olive oil from family olive trees and balsamic vinegar

Squash blossoms from the garden stuffed with ground beef, chard from the
garden, fresh herbs, breadcrumbs, and parmigiano reggiano

Chicken cooked in Marsala wine with fresh garlic, shallots from the
garden, and mushrooms

Peaches from my aunt's tree drizzled with French peach liqueur

Starting in the upper left and moving clockwise: sheep's milk gouda
with truffle, honey-soaked goat cheese, cow's milk cheese soaked in
balsamic vinegar, and a sheep's milk cheese from the Basque region
in France

Homemade biscotti from my great-grandmother's recipe

Mom has dubbed this a "Super Saturday" and wants to do something like it once a month. The menus and "look" of the table and food will change, but it will continue to be a chance for us to enjoy each other's company and good food during these crazy times.

Buon appetito!

The Tomato Plant That Ate New York

Tomatoes - Day 1

Tomatoes are an integral part of Italian cooking. It's hard to go a whole day without seeing tomatoes somewhere on the menu. A good tomato is just as important for a hearty pasta sauce as it is for a salad or bruschetta. Not all tomatoes are created equal, and one that's good in sauce may not be quite as good in caprese. A gardener that also likes to cook will want to have a few different types in her garden so she can use the optimal variety for her intended dish. It was with this philosophy in mind that we planned our tomatoes for this year's summer garden.

We've grown tomatoes most years for the past decade or so, but we tended to be more conservative in the number of tomato plants we chose. Typically, we'd only have one or two plants--enough to enjoy most days of the week, but not necessarily enough to make sauce or can. The area in which they are growing this year has proven to be fertile tomato-growing ground in years past. The first year, we grew a single tomato plant in this area and ended up with a plant that outgrew its tomato cage by about 10 feet. No, really. We didn't feed it extra plant food, we didn't do anything special. We just put it in the ground, watered it regularly, and let nature do her thing. The plant's unbelievable growth spurt defied any growing guides we could find for any variety of tomato. They just aren't supposed to get that big. People we told about the tomato would give us the "are you sure?" look, assuming we were pulling their leg and engaging in a loose association with the truth. I assure you, we were not.

Tomatoes - Day 115

One or two years later, we planted there again. And again, we grew another Tomato Plant That Ate New York. This one might have been a little bit bigger than the first one. Again, no special plant food, just put it in the ground, watered it, and let it be. My parents blamed my green thumb; my dad claimed that because I had touched it, it was imbued with some magical plant energy that made it erupt into a monster-sized plant. I think tomatoes just like it there. There's good, rich soil, plenty of sunlight, and it's on an automatic watering system with good drainage so it doesn't get over-watered (yes, that's a thing with tomatoes). We've even had tomatoes reseed themselves and come back on their own because they like the garden so much! Tomatoes break the rules a lot with us.

The mystery tomato

This year, we have four tomatoes growing there, enough for us to enjoy and share with family, and enough to turn into sauce or can if we want to. And we seem to be experiencing more of the same Giant Tomato Plant trend. Three of the four tomatoes in this area have far outgrown their tomato cages, which were custom-made to be bigger and stronger than what you'd find at a nursery. One of the tomatoes has pulled the cage up off the ground(!). We've had to tie up multiple branches that were so weighed down with fruit. The three big plants are taller than either Mom or me (and we're 5'5"). To give some perspective, the Black Krims are only supposed to have a spread (width of the plant) of 18 inches; it exceeded that by about double. In 115 days, we've created three monsters. And to make things even more interesting, we have a mystery tomato in our midst. We thought we bought two San Marzano tomato plants, which are red tomatoes that are great for saucing. What we ended up with is one San Marzano, and one plant with these yellowish tomatoes that have green stripes. I think it's a Green Zebra tomato, but I'm not 100% sure. It's tasty and full-flavored, and works well in salads. If we can find out what it is, I'd like to have one next summer.

I dare say it's another good year for tomatoes.