In the Garden with Pat Rubin

Bee garden writer Pat Rubin writes about everything that grows, from flowers and trees to vegetables and lawns. Pat volunteered for several years as a Placer County Master Gardener and has written about gardening for many national and regional publications. In addition to gardening, she spends time raising and showing miniature horses and miniature donkeys.

In the Garden will include news, events, advice and other gardening tidbits. Pat will also answer reader questions.

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« I'll be back..... | In the Garden front page | The Daily Dirt »

July 30, 2007

I'm back!

After being gone from the garden for a couple of weeks, the first thing I noticed when I returned was how much things had grown.

The beans have grown into a tangled tower of foliage. The beans hide inside, and I have to pull back the leaves like I’m opening curtains and peer inside from all sides. No one picked beans while we were gone, so I had pounds of oversize, bulging pods. I split the pods open, and popped out the beans to steam as fresh beans. The corn in a nearby bed is taller than me. The marigolds and petunias are covered in cherry orange or purple flowers.

The eggplant has dark purple fruit and lavender colored flowers dangling from its dark stems. The basil grew leaps and bounds, and needed trimming back. It’s a pleasant job snipping away the flowers and inhaling deeply that sweet basil fragrance.

Next, we picked beefsteak tomatoes, cut them down the center so they opened like a flower, sprinkled them with chives and made a meal of it.

But I’ve decided the best thing about the summer garden is eating cherry tomatoes in the garden in the afternoon. I reach inside the foliage and grab a handful of plump, red tomatoes. That pungent, sharp scent of tomato leaves gets on my skin. I pop the tomatoes into my mouth, and enjoy them warm as the summer day.

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