October 14, 2013
It is the in-between season in my vegetable garden. Summer is long gone and half of the winter vegetables are planted in the raised beds. There is a sense of expectancy.
Some gardens morph into the next season with ease and the line is fuzzy between the winter and summer garden. Lettuce and broccoli sidle up to the peppers and eggplant that linger. Not so in my garden usually but there are many ways to garden.
The crush of the strawberry guava harvest slowed this week and I ate them right off the tree when they were warm and soft from the sun.
Many find the guava too astringent or the hard, small seeds bothersome. Not me. When working in the garden, I like to select a large guava, warm from the sun and delightfully ripe. I rub the skin in my hands and eat it. I swallow the tiny hard seeds. They are all part of the pleasure of eating a guava. From an earlier post, Strawberry Guavas.
This is a “last of” salad. Lurking in my vegetable drawer were a few beets from last June. (Think root cellar). I cooked them and they joined with the last of my lettuce, the last of the green olives and some Marcona almonds with rosemary. Orange muscat champagne vinegar and olive oil dressed this luscious lunch salad.
Rose scented geraniums grow in a pot in the vegetable garden. I picked some to make a flavored syrup.
Then I added only two leaves of the rose scented geranium to the late season rhubarb as it cooked. The aroma of rose settled lightly with each spoonful at dinner last night. An unexpected pairing.
And fall is here. The sasanqua camellias are blooming.
