Lazy days of summer

By Stephanie

These are days when cooking doesn't sound like much fun, but nothing on the restaurant menu sounds all that great either. When I think about eating, I want fresh, seasonal food - crisp salads, sauteed greens, a little fish, icy fruit, or something snitched right from the garden. 

In years gone by, I had a large community garden patch and some plantings at home, with up to 35 tomato plants, tomatillos, potatoes, garlic and onions, peas and beans, peppers and eggplants, cucumbers, squash, and corn, beets, radishes, greens, figs, strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries, and one year, even some okra. Abundance. I gifted fresh vegetables, herb starts, and froze plenty of sauce to last the winter. Hated going out to eat and paying big bucks for simple preparations of the vegetables lying in wait at home.

The last few years we've been limited to what fits in 3 patio containers. Thank goodness for the local Farmer's Market! This spring, in spite of circumstances, we managed to start a small vegetable garden. With some work, we were able to turn a small area of heavy clay into a couple of well manured and composted planting beds. The home compost, rich and crumbly, held a ton of squash seeds, invisible to the eye. Volunteers were everywhere. I allowed 3 plants to stick around as a border for the tomatoes, and transplanted a couple elsewhere. Seems like hundreds were uprooted and composted again. Seeing the beautiful blossoms, wish we had kept a few more to try stuffed squash blossoms or squash blossom tart.

Any year I see tomatoes turning red for the 4th seems like victory. 3 of the Stupice on the patio have color!