Earlier this summer, I applied for a plot in one of our city's community organic garden plots and was prepared to wait for at least a year for one to open up. At the garden closest to my house, the wait list can be several years long. I was so thrilled when the director of the gardens called me on Tuesday and asked if I would like to take over an abandoned plot! I got to meet with her yesterday, and I got to "meet" my new garden. The space had been used as a classroom project, and the kids had planted sunflowers, beans, tomatoes, marigolds, peppers, cukes, strawflowers, chives, strawberries. And tomatillos. So many tomatillo plants! Even more the tomatillos than weeds, of which there are lots and lots and lots, even after I spent two hours pulling them up.
The really ripe ones in the bowl are going to get roasted later today for salsa. I am hoping other families at the preschool or some of co-workers and neighbors are interested in taking home some of my tomatillo bounty, because I can only think of a few uses for them. Maybe roast and freeze? Any ideas?
Now, this is Maine, and frost could be setting in any moment now, which I sincerely hope does not devastate my assistant gardener, who has appointed herself Pruner, mostly because it is very exciting to wield scissors all willy nilly-like, and also, I suspect, because she thinks the word itself is silly, what with its association with the prunes you eat and all. My kid is Excited, with a captial E. She has added "gardener" to her ever growing list of things that she will be later in life, and insists that she is not a gardener now, just Pruner. To give you a good idea of just how excited she is, she forewent picture books before bed last night (for the first time in her almost-five years!) and instead chose to snuggle up with Johnny's Selected Seeds 2006 catalogue. It was heartmelting, yes.
I am feeling abundantly fortunate today. We are probably going to miss The Common Ground Fair this weekend, which is kind of breaking my heart a teeny tiny bit, but hopefully I'll be able to plan better next year. It looks like a cozy rainy Sunday awaits us here in the Northeast, and that is honestly my favorite kind. Happy weekend friends!
Comments