The winter holiday season is often known as “the giving season.” I have a difficult time with the way this tradition has morphed, into more of a “consumer season.”
The bedazzlement of tinsel and holiday lights, for me, has become overshadowed by guilt that I don’t have money to properly lavish my loved ones with “things. “I also don’t particularly like feeling like an urban scavenger desperately searching for “that perfect something” at the last minute.
But as a gardener, and one who appreciates most things “garden,” mid-summer seems to be a more laid-back, stress-free season to give and receive.
Last week at work the gal at the front desk rang and said there was a visitor.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t Matthew McConaughey personally answering my fan-mail, but I’m confident that will happen with time.
A man named Jack had stopped in to share some of his tomatilla stash, several generous handfuls of various peppers and several big juicy onions. (See tomatilla salsa recipe below).
One of the added bonuses about getting free garden goodies from strangers is spending a few minutes chatting about gardening and gathering valuable tips for the future.
Jack brightened my day and he invited Tommy and I to come by his garden some time, where, no doubt, I could likely talk him out of some more produce.
The other big bonus items this month have been regular tomatoes. One would think I wouldn’t be so receptive to other people’s tomatoes, since Tommy and I planted 16 plants this year.
However, all but about six of the plants are cherry tomatoes. Funny how we can have hundreds of cherry tomatoes on the vine, then just a few days of Tommy “watering” them and half the collection of juicy, red orbs has disappeared.
We were visiting a friend recently and noticed some vines trailing over the fence from a neighbor’s yard. The fruit on the vine was strange — shaped like a Roma tomato but a sunny orange color. The skin was soft and the fruit felt hollow.
Being the investigative reporter that I am, I knocked on the neighbors’ front door. We determined it was a passion fruit, but not the kind you see in Hawaii. Inside the orange encasement was a small cluster of seeds, that were reminiscent of salmon eggs. However, the flavor was somewhat bland.
Maya is the garden-keeper and while I innocently gave her kudos on her outstanding garden, she offered a big bag of tomatoes.
I took these home and made an easy spaghetti sauce recipe perfect for freezing. (See recipe below).
For a variety of reasons, making fresh salsa or spaghetti sauce results in a food experience far superior than buying something in a jar. You know the ingredients are fresh, don’t contain substances that require knowledge of Latin to understand and aren’t made in a big factory somewhere near a major highway.
Give and receive
This month has also been a big bonus for sharing of fruit.
Mandi at work has a plum tree way in the back of her property and has been bringing bags of plums in to the office. I usually try to contain myself and wait until the end of a work shift to load up a big bag of the fruit to take home.
If I had less restraint, like in the past, I would have just snagged them all up before anyone had a chance to see they were there. But that was in the past, I swear.
Sticking with the giving season, I have taken my neighbor Bob up on his offer to raid his apricot tree and have regularly been delivering apricots to Mandi. I’d like to say that this was due to pure generosity on my part. However, like a dog trained that certain behavior results in treats, I have learned that for each bag of apricots I deliver, I am rewarded with a fresh batch of plums.
Four o’clocks — friend or foe
Recently I have been ranting about four o’clocks, a plant sold in seed packets in big-name gardening catalogs, and heralded as a delight for its fragrance and hardiness.
However, I found that the plant is incredibly selfish and will attempt to dominate the entire yard, choking out more passive plants.
Last week I did some research and learned that the plant not only drops oblong, black seeds everywhere, it also lurks underground in a bulb-like form.
There was one edge of the yard where I scattered seeds, thinking the plant would stick to its own territory. However, shoots have began to appear throughout the carefully prepared tomato area.
At first I clipped them off with garden clippers, only to see them return again and again.
After the research done last week, I learned to dig up the roots with a shovel, to uproot the entire package.
Even though I had a vague vision of what lurked below the surface, I was still astounded when the shovel produced a giant, soil-blackened enemy vessel the size of a softball (see photo).
I brought the plant with its bulb in for the photographer to capture, before I choose some suitable ceremony for its destruction. The thought did cross my mind about planting it in the yard of someone I disliked, but garden karma is probably worse than other types of karma.
Plus, my friend Hyacinth gave me sage advice for a different approach to this inner-turmoil. She suggested that I put the bulb in a big pot. If so many other people enjoy the plant, maybe I could too.
“Boundaries,” Hyacinth explained, are very important. We set boundaries in most other parts of our lives, why not set boundaries for our plants?
It certainly saves a boat-load of consternation.
