Gardening Lessons Learned: A List
Things we have learned about gardening this year (so far–there are another six to eight weeks left in the growing season here, so stay tuned): If you buy an oregano plant, put it in your garden, then start eating it and think “Hmmm, this doesn’t taste anything like the dried stuff”, chances are good it’s not oregano even though that’s what the label said. (Turns out it’s an herb called summer savory. Thank goodness it’s still an edible herb, since we ate it for weeks before cluing in…) Basil goes with eeeeverything. We have basil coming out our ears. We’ve eaten it in tomato salads, in stir-fry, on pasta, on skewers with cherry tomatoes and bocconcini (small balls of mozzarella cheese), and there’s still more in pesto form in the freezer…good thing we love the stuff! Related: once you have had fresh herbs, it’s very hard to go back. Or garden-fresh or made-from-scratch anything, really. Since my spouse and I are not actually homesteaders or even homemakers, this is a problem. (We haven’t gotten as far as canning yet, but we did just make fresh Irish soda bread, peach compote, and refrigerator pickles, and our freezer is filling up with slow-roasted tomatoes and chicken broth. We miiight be wannabe homesteaders.) Beets are prone to diseases and pests (at least ours are). But you can still eat the beets, just not the leaves…which is sad because the leaves are tasty too, as it turns out. Squirrels like cucumbers even more than…