A Garden Tour

It's finally May, the weather is warm and the garden is calling for us to give it something to do. So we are obliging. I thought you might like a tour of some of the growing things in our garden--intentional works of today plus the things that blossom year after year and gladden my heart.

We'll start with the herb pots on the upstairs deck, conveniently just outside the kitchen. We're looking at curly parsley--as opposed to Italian parsley, which is absolutely heavenly in this can't-stop-eating-it-dish! My curly parsley will be good in tabbouleh, one of the specialties made by our Lebanese neighbor Antoinette, who lives across the road.

Then there's the cilantro, which is wonderful in this cabbage salad, which we've taken to eating often lately:

1 head of cabbage, chopped

1 bunch of cilantro without stems, chopped

1 bunch chopped green onions

3/4 c. pine nuts (they're horribly expensive; you could substitute toasted chopped walnuts)

Juice of 1 lime

Salt to taste

Extra-light olive oil

Sauté pine nuts in extra-light olive oil until lightly browned.  Sprinkle pine nuts with salt to taste.  Combine all ingredients and drizzle with extra-light olive oil. Squeeze the juice of a fresh lime over all.

Oh, my!  It's so delicious!

I love regular sweet basil, but I couldn't find any of those plants for sale today, so we'll go with the more exotic sorts. This is Thai basil, which will be yummy in the curries I make.  When you crush a leaf and sniff it, it gives off a nice licorice odor.

And here's some spicy globe basil, which I have read is good in pasta or in a chickpea-feta salad. Sounds delicious!

My crop of dill will be wonderful mixed into a sour cream & cucumber salad.  Or I can throw it into some potato salad, which I think is best when it contains eggs and fresh dill.  Yum!

I do so love rosemary potatoes, roasted in the oven with a bit of olive oil and salt. Rosemary always reminds me of eating delicious food at the Culinary Institute restaurant in the Napa valley. The herb gardens outside that great stone edifice smelled wonderfully of rosemary.

I've also been busy this morning in the terraced garden on the west side of our house. Here's the unassuming yellow squash, as it looks today. It's a vegetable we love to sauté with zucchini, onions and mushrooms and roll with a bit of sour cream and toasted sunflower seeds in a flour tortilla for a scrumptious summer lunch.

And then there's eggplant. I planted two of these, because I don't know how many eggplants (eggplant fruits? gourds? squash?) one plant can produce. Eggplant parmesan is always a hit. I would love to try making a vegetarian moussaka sometime, too.

And then there are cucumbers. My husband isn't a fan of them, but I think cucumbers and tomatoes are the epitome of how summer tastes. I'd eat fresh cucumber spears just plain. And they're also delicious the way I've eaten them in Finland, on a rye cracker with a bit of swiss cheese and thin slices of red bell pepper. Mmmm.  My mouth is watering!

Edibles aren't the only thing in our garden.  The air is perfumey with the scent of lilacs right now.  There are two gargantuan white-pink lilac bushes just below the deck (the one where all the pots of herbs are).  The flowers don't last long once cut, so I just leave them on the bushes and prop the back doors and windows open to invite the smell of spring in.

Our dogwood tree is pretty modest, just a spindly white-blossomed thing near the backyard shed. But the flowers are wonderfully photogenic.

Not satisfied with the pink-white lilac, we also planted this lovely variegated purple-and-white version by the back fence.

And finally, I'll say goodbye to you at the front door, where the bleeding hearts are putting on quite a show this year.  I do love these plants, which thrive on the shady north side of the house.

Thanks for coming on my garden tour. Now it's your turn! What's growing at your place?