Oh Kale... (and garden updates)

Just a summer update on the status of my garden, which has chugged away this spring and summer with surprising alacrity. After last year's massive disappointment™, the Georgia sun has smiled upon us, and given us just enough growing days both to maximize the early lettuce crop and get the tomatoes off to a running start.

Among the biggest hits this summer are sugar snap peas. Sweet and punchy, and so delicious that my seven year old has devoured them almost as fast as they have grown up. More than once we were able to send them in her lunch. Given how well these delicate climbing vines like the cold weather, I want to take a run at fall growing in greater numbers.

Winterbor in summer

Kale has been resilient and prolific and as tender as this thick green leaf can get. We planted two varieties. The superior plant was Nero di Toscana, an Italian heirloom that produces almost beveled leaves, long and flat and dark green. The other is Winterbor Kale, a hybrid that is, surprise of surprises, winter-hardy.

The Toscana leaf does have a superior taste, no question. This might be why the bugs like it. At least, I presume the leaves have been somewhat mauled by the bugs. While that does not affect flavor (there is plenty of leaf to go around), it does lessen the aesthetic effect. Effectively. But I might try more marigolds with this next year.

The Winterbor leaf is actually the prettier of the two. It produces a curled blue-green leaf that almost shimmers in the light. And while the Toscana leaf has a superior taste, both in depth and texture, the Winterbor is formidable in its own right. If one likes Kale, one loves this Kale. At least from my garden.

I have no idea what is to become of the Kale as summer grinds on. I don't know if it will return or if I must replant it. We shall see. If I do, then I must take care to listen to the instructions and plant 12 to 24 inches apart. My plants are too crowded at present, and it stunts leaf production.

Cobbler, anyone?

The rest of the garden soldiers on. The tomatoes are popping up quickly and flowering and fruiting. I'm guessing another 30 days to some good production.

The blueberries are looking taut. And tasty. Let us pray. The strawberries have already produced and will continue to produce. They are sweet and soft.

cuke in the cage

It's a good garden year. The cucumbers are up and running. The broccoli has been tender. The radishes peppery.

the gin, the tonic, and the garden

I've been researching gin and tonics this week to try and figure out the best way of using my tonic water. It's been arduous. But then again, I suffer for my art.

There are two versions of the gin and tonic that I make. The first is The Quencher, and it works something like this:

1 part gin
1 part tonic syrup
5 parts club soda

If I do this with 1 1/2 oz. parts, then I'm looking at a very tall drink--nearly 12 oz. of fluid on top of a whale's share of ice. I don't bother garnishing this, but it'll take a squeeze or two of lime or lemon, should one want. The Quencher is perfect for touring my extensive gardens, especially when the black krim is beginning to fruit.

The Black Krim shows progress

Velvet Underground?

The second version is The Standard:

2 parts gin
1 part tonic syrup
4 parts club soda

This makes a standard gin and tonic--as close as I can get to what it tastes like when I use Schwepps, Q, Fever Tree, or what have you. In short, I believe this is the correct recipe to create a gin and tonic that you might order at a serious cocktail bar. And The Standard is not just a modified Quencher. Parts should be measured with a 1/2 or 3/4 oz. jigger and it should be served in a traditional highball glass. To order a double is, inappropriate. Garnish is not necessary, but lemon peel is nice. So too is this cucumber, with Hendricks gin.

The third version is The Bitter Pill:

2 parts gin
1 part tonic syrup
1 part club soda

Mix ingredients in a shaker, add ice and shake vigorously five or six times. Strain over a highball glass packed with ice. You can also "layer" the drink by shaking it without club soda, pouring over ice in a highball glass and then adding the club soda.

The cucumber in perspective

Finishing the Rows

Today I laid out the rest of Maia's plot.

Juliet Tomatoes and Max's Wild Cherries.

Chives (still flowering from last year); Matilda butter lettuce and red arrowhead lettuce; gentry summer squash

Diva -- Jade -- Diva cucumbers -- Matilda butter lettuce -- red arrowhead lettuce -- tomatillo.

I mixed black cow and my homemade compost into the rows and topped them with Miracle Grow Garden Soil. The soil quality doesn't look perfect, so we will see. I added some blood meal along the top, fertilized it all right off the bat and mulched the whole thing. Now I will let benign neglect bring the fruits in.

first fruit

The tomatoes are beginning to produce. The first large tomato was, to no one's surprise, the Orange Blossom. Also in the basket are red sweet olives, yellow Juane Flamees, and a cucumber. I'm getting four or five cucumbers a day.

Double Yield Cucumbers

Dill-icious

We are now at the point where 2-3 cucumbers are coming off our vines daily. I have pruned back the plant to kill any besotted leaves, and just to slow the outward growth. These invasive vines appear to propogate ad inifitum, making me wonder if it would not be better in the future to plant two rather than three of them. Of course, my slow growing cucumber plant may "keep the party going" after these first two plants are spent.

The cucumbers it produces are crisp and fit. They are heavy on seeds, but the seeds are not bitter in the slightest. The skin is thin and a luminous white-green, and also eminently edible. I have taken lately to cutting half a cucumber into thin slices, dropping them at the bottom of a big glass along with some dill, filling it with my homemade club soda, and taking this into the garden in the evening. However odd it might seem to put dill into a spritzer, it is a natural match to the cucumber and sates my desire for savory and spicy concoctions (preferably calorie free ones).

I like this cucumber better than the marketmore variety I planted last year. So this was, at least, one move in the right direction.