Hi John,

A week ago, we pulled over at a rest area for our final meal of the vacation. You pulled out the pocket knife to slice an apple. I unburied the last of the cheese and celery from the cooler, found the peanut butter and crackers in the food box. We took in views from the shade and then climbed back in the car for the rest of the drive. Home again, home again. To indoor plumbing, clean clothes, and freshly cooked meals.

But first, the garden…

The garden plot is even better at rooting us in community than I would’ve hoped. We don’t see our actual neighbors all that often, but there’s one family where the dad’s seen me headed to the garden a couple of times. The next time we ran into the mom, she asked about it and we encouraged them to go ahead and sign up for the waitlist.

When we were writing a note with the email address of the garden, I realized we could ask them to look after our plot while we’re gone. We haven’t seen them yet, but the thank you card they left convinces me that they appreciated doing us the favor.

The volun-beans are taking over whatever they can reach. We’re cutting them back to give the peppers and eggplant more light. I really hope that the tripod design for the soup beans works better. Dahlia looks like it’s budding. (But then it looked like it was budding two weeks ago and I don’t see any blooms.) The basil mostly went to flower while we were gone. We’ll have to decide whether we let it go to seed from here or try to cut it back.

Considering the options

• I think I’m feeling cheesy eggplant tomato instead of a roasted eggplant dip. It’s a debate between the eggplant tomato towers from Simply in Season or eggplant parmesan.
• Though there is ratatouille.
• Half Baked Harvest’s approach to stuffing spaghetti squash and then baking it was my best success with the vegetable last year. Maybe pop cherry tomatoes in whole and let them pop til they sauce? Maybe cook up the chard to a green sauce?
• Lemon verbena to tea now. And maybe straight to the dehydrator for tea later.
• There are some potatoes remaining from when I bought at the store before the CSA delivered more. So green bean potato salad. Maybe something more vinegary this time.
• We should do something with the peppers before they start to pile up too much. Peperonata from Six Seasons?
• Before we left, I ended up blending half the watermelon with mint and basil. Poured into yogurt containers and popped in the freezer. Letting them spend a morning thawing, before blending again has been a lovely agua fresca. Bet we’re doing more of that.
• There are some green cherry tomatoes on the stems I cut back. Time to try lacto-fermentation with the special lids you gave me for my birthday!
• Smoothie of the moment: bit of coconut milk, splash of oj, handful of frozen cantaloupe (from before we left), and a bit less of frozen papaya. Served with whole blueberries.

~s