Goodbye garden. Hello fun!

Volunteer cosmos populated with bumblebees a couple years ago.

Here we go again. Preparing to vacation for a month and scrambling to get the garden ready for our absence. 

It's like parents leaving the kids just when they've been potty trained. The hard and dirty work is over and it's time to reap the benefits.

In a few weeks, our garden will be at its most beautiful.

It won't be pumping out ripe tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants quite yet, but it will achieve its most colorful and lush vegetative mass.

It will be thick with birds and bees, berry thieves, and pollinators.

Even yesterday, when I snapped most of these garden shots, one could almost see the chlorophyll burgeoning in young leaves, and savor the sweet, salty, sharp aromas of tomatoes, mint, dill, eggplants, basil, and alyssum, all muddled with the rich scent of soil warming in the summer sun.

It will get even better.

Like this, taken a few years ago in early August.

But we won't be here to see it, smell it, taste it or have any other of those smarmy moments gardening can induce.

Instead, we'll be having real fun!

The last rapid on the Middle Fork of the Salmon trip is big! It is actually on the Main Salmon River close to the takeout for the Middle Fork just a few miles after the tributary enters the larger river.  PK is rowing. I'm staring into a bus-sized hole, which was easily avoided. I don't think a rapid this gnarly is fun, but he does. One thing for sure, I was not thinking about the tomatoes.

If you've followed this blog for a few years, you've heard how we struggle with whether to have a big garden, as it doesn't fit with our relatively new traveling lifestyle. Or, coincidentally, with our aging bodies.

This storyline is getting old, right?

It sure is for me. For us. Getting old. As are we. And time is a wasting.

I think that without saying it, we've settled with having a messy imperfect garden so that we can also have messy imperfect road trips and international episodes. We can have both.

On our coming adventure, we'll raft for seven days the best of the West's most extensive wilderness on the Middle Fork of the Salmon  River in Idaho. One hundred miles and 100 rapids. There will be a blog post.

Then I'll meet up with a Texas girlfriend for the Red Ants Pants Music Festival in White Sulphur Springs, MT, and PK will row another legendary river, the Main Salmon River in Idaho. Can't wait!

Then she and I will have a leisurely road trip back home to Oregon.

Yes, PK and I are driving separate vehicles to Idaho and parting ways after the MFS. And we'll be fishing/dancing/singing/rowing/ without much thought of what we left behind.

At home, our garden will be advancing on the surrounding fields and our neighbor will be beating it back with a hoe and a harvest basket. We couldn't do it without her. (Of course, we pay her, and not just with all the zucchini she can shove into her refrigerator and her family's mouths.)

The following are a few recent photos from our Southern Oregon heritage garden.

Heritage? Where did that come from? I guess when you've reached a certain time in life, and have worked a piece of land for decades, it becomes heritage, which means.....a legacy, a culture, a custom, a tradition, an inheritance.

We have two adult sons who were born and grew up here. We had a "family meeting" last week during which we inquired whether either hopes to someday live here. Not anytime soon, that's for sure. But giving it up, as we sometimes ponder, is a point of sentimentality and ambivalence for us and our family.

The closest we have come to changing venues is when we discuss going on the road for a lengthy time and renting the house and land. We also consider, in an offhand way, selling it and relocating to a different home to try on surroundings that do not require so much attention.

Will we do it? Not this year. But sometime. Maybe.

In the meantime.....we love where we live and, at the same time, can't wait for our next adventures.

                  A few recent home photos.

Now that we have a fence that has them stymied, we are entertained by our resident deer, including this young buck who was likely born here. 

Honey bees LOVE leek flowers. We've never harvested a leek to eat. They're all for the bees, except for those cut and dried as decorative fresh and dried flowers.

PK says that we now have a savannah look with our 25 or so apple trees (reduced from 300+ when we bought the property in the 1970s). The deer trim them all to approximately the same distance from the ground. We still harvest way more apples than we can give away. 

In an ongoing attempt to cut back, we devote at least two garden rows a year to a nitrogen-fixing cover crop such as the young red clover above. We allow volunteer cosmos, dill, sunflowers, and chard to share the space.

By the time we return, this area will be alive with colorful zinnias and sunflowers complementing the marigolds. The fig tree will have grown dozens and dozens of fruits that won't yet be ripe enough eat.

One almost-ripe cherry tomato will be joined by literally hundreds of others on one
indeterminate plant. Indeterminate means it reaches and wanders without end. 

The "garden" on the backside of the house looks as good as it ever will right now. Why? the daylilies bloom and are gone. The Shasta daisies bloom and then fall over and are gone. They all slump onto that sweet walkway that PK built soon after he retired 10 years ago as part of his first "five-year plan." Replacing some of this vegetation, especially the daisies, is on his (our) to-do list.

Bad daisies napping on the walkway.

Onions are flanked on the left by pepper plants, which
 look healthy and happy. 

Massive onion crop coming on. Yahoo! We're thinning and eating now.

A walkway around the front porch is guarded by a metal rooster and ivy that will reach out and strangle you if you stand still long enough. 

Faithful lilies show up every year in front of the solarium, which we consider
 the front of our house.

Sadly, roses don't last forever and this beauty is in decline. It is an old-fashioned rose and no one seems to know the variety. I would love to plant another. Please let me know via the comments below if you can identify. It is wonderfully fragrant and its blooms turn several colors before the final pink.

Missing from our garden: sweet corn, green beans, beets, potatoes, and many types of winter squash. We really are cutting back! Tomatoes, peppers, onions? Gotta have em.

Best thing we ever grew - our sons who continue to make us proud.
 Chris on the left and Quinn on the right.

    A proud sun salutation if ever I saw one by a volunteer sunflower.

  Old gardens like ours are blessed with a variety of welcome volunteers.

They show up every year in different configurations.

They will all be here when we return!

Previous posts about gardening angst

The garden - refuge or tether?

Cutting back on gardening to travel? Really?

New take on marinara and gardening ambivalence 

New take on marinara, time-saving tips and gardening ambivalence - UPDATED 8/26/2021

The basics for a grand marinara sauce are right here: Sun Gold, Brandywine and San Marzano tomatoes, garlic, onions and basil. Even a few Romas.

I've been making homemade marinara sauce since we started gardening lo these 40 years ago. If that sounds like a lot of years to you, believe me, it sounds even more unbelievable to me. The years fly by and blah blah blah.

So maybe I've learned a few things? Well. Maybe. If so, among the tidbits is a new revelation; when making marinara fresh from the garden, use the sweetest, ripest, and most tasty tomatoes no matter the variety. Duh!

Usually, those are not Roma types, which have been the mainstay of ALL previous marinara/tomato seasons. Every single batch! This year, it dawned on me, after searching around for new ideas for marinara, to simply use the tomatoes with the best flavor. WHAT A CONCEPT!

Our generous garden obliged with luscious Sun Gold cherry tomatoes, succulent Brandywines, and the marvelous San Marzanos. The San Marzano is a cherished Italian tomato grown in a specific soil type in a small area. We have three wild San Marzano plants, snaking their indeterminate tendrils in all directions.

Thick, rich, almost creamy marinara made mostly with San Marzano tomatoes. If you don't grow San Marzanos, as we didn't for most of our gardening years, they're also sold in cans and are reportedly excellent for making sauces.

San Marzanos define tomato goodness. They're super sweet when ripe, and meaty, meaning that they don't have a lot of seeds. They're not bomb-proof like Romas, but they have a deeper flavor. 

I was able to make one batch primarily with San Marzanos from the garden. But other batches made with mixed varieties have also been good. My stainless steel fry pan holds five quarts of whirred-up tomatoes and estimated quantities of other ingredients are based on starting out with five quarts of liquefied tomatoes.

A typical harvest. Most above are Roma types with a few San Marzanos
in the white box, and small Brandywines peeking out from below.

Guidelines for making fresh-from-the-garden marinara and time-saving tips*

If you're hunting for a recipe with precise measurements, this is not for you. If you're an adventurous cook eager to make it work with what you have, stick around. The idea is to use tomatoes in season and freeze the resulting sauce to produce wow-worthy dishes during the dark days of tasteless expensive supermarket tomatoes. (Isn't it odd that mealy tasteless tomatoes can be found in supermarkets even during tomato season?) 

I HAVE DISCOVERED THAT SOME OF THE MORE EXPENSIVE COMMERCIAL MARINARA PRODUCTS ARE ALMOST AS GOOD AS HOMEMADE.  SUCH AS FROM SONOMA WITH ❤️

* Do NOT peel the tomatoes!

Well, you can, but I NEVER do when making marinara, and no one has noticed. Peeling is time-consuming and unnecessary.

I've had enough of dipping tomatoes into boiling water and "slipping off the skins, ha ha" to last a lifetime. Done with that!

In perusing recipes online I noticed that peeling skins from tomatoes, or not, is a point of contention with purists. Let them contend! Maybe they don't have food processors or good blenders, maybe they have all the time in the world, maybe they like peeling tomatoes. But if you don't have the time or inclination, but have a kitchen device to do the trick, use it!

For years the Cuisinart food processor was my marinara friend, but recently I bought a Vitamix blender, which does an even better job of pulverizing lumps, seeds, and skins. Plus it can handle a greater volume, making for even less work.

What you'll need, more or less

• Enough dead-ripe tomatoes, preferably heritage, sweet cherry tomatoes, and/or San Marzanos, but also Romas, Celebrities, Big Boys, and other varieties, enough to make around five liquid quarts. The tomatoes must be ripe ripe ripe. About 15 pounds of fresh tomatoes.
• One large or two medium onions, preferably not sweet, chopped
• Six to eight large garlic cloves, or more, chopped
• Salt to taste
• Generous handful of fresh basil to add late 
• Dried blend of Italian herbs (not herbs that have been languishing in your cupboard for 10 years, but recently purchased or dried by you. The fresher the better.)
• Olive oil to saute onions, garlic, and herbs, but not the fresh basil
• 4-oz can of organic tomato paste if you choose to reduce cooking time

Onion, garlic, Italian herbs. Saute before

 adding blended tomatoes.  

SKIP IT! THIS IS A WORTHLESS STEP

Seasoning your sauce

There's also a camp that goes super simple using canned tomatoes, preferably San Marzanos, maybe a bit of onion and/or garlic, and a sprig or two of fresh basil. The basil is added late to the party, and is dragged through the sauce to extract flavor.

Maybe they do this in Italy. Doesn't work for me. I'm good with fresh basil, without stems, added late, but just leave it in the sauce.

Depending upon what's in the larder or the garden, I may add, along with ingredients listed above:

• chopped sweet peppers 
• chopped hot peppers, just a kick for back flavor
• garlic chili or serrano sauce, a Tbsp or so
• crushed fennel seed (love this flavor in marinara) 
• a sprig of fresh rosemary (remove after cooking) 

Directions

First prepare the onions, garlic, and herbs, and lightly brown them in olive oil in the same pan you'll use to cook your sauce.* Browning, according to numerous sources, adds depth of flavor whether you're making soup, gravy, or sauces.  OK TO SKIP THE BROWNING 

Then rinse, core, and cut in half the tomatoes before whirring up in a food processor or blender, about 15 pounds in batches. You should have enough liquid tomatoes to fill a five-quart heavy metal pan, preferably a stainless steel skillet. A soup pot may be used instead, but it takes longer for evaporation to produce a rich thick sauce.

Simmer for 3-4 hours until the volume has been reduced to roughly half. A 4-ounce can of organic tomato paste hastens the process, in case you're planning marinara sauce for dinner. 

More - if you're interested in my mental state, plus links to earlier garden-fresh recipes 

If you've read earlier posts, you know I have a continuing struggle with gardening, trying to cut back so we're not tied down. Trying to get a grip on the reality of being retirees and getting older every minute, and not needing all this food and work—spending hours in the kitchen chopping, blending, and trimming to can, freeze or dry the tons of stuff that lands in the kitchen. No no no!

THIS SOUNDS EXACTLY LIKE WHAT I WAS THINKING THIS MORNING. 

But then there are the other parts. The tender parts. The pleasure, during the drab winter days, or even spring, while tomatoes are still a dream, of grabbing a bag of frozen tomato deliciousness and turning it into an easy feast. STILL TRUE.

The spring asparagus feasts. The blueberries all winter. The onions and garlic hanging in the PUMPHOUSE IN THE GARAGE.  

And also the garden immersion experience, which occasionally transports me into the sweet world of birdsong, bees, and butterflies. The wild randomness of volunteer sunflowers, cosmos, clover, spearmint, and dill make a fragrant disorder that somehow creates order in my life. Even the work - the tomato harvesting, the weeding, the flower deadheading - is a methodical Zen practice where my hands and body do the work but my attention is elsewhere. Floating.  

I AM STILL TALKING MYSELF INTO IT!

I can lose myself writing (once I'm at the computer and get started) but also in gardening chores, which need to be done. How can I give this up? How can I not? 

There is a time, turn, turn, turn, you know the Pete Seeger song made famous by the Byrds?  One of my favorites.

To everything - turn, turn, turn There is a season - turn, turn, turn. And a time to every purpose under heaven.A time to be born, a time to die. A time to plant, a time to reap. A time to kill, a time to heal. A time to laugh, a time to weep.

Now. Which way to turn, turn, turn?

I loved being in the messy volunteer garden recently, with the wildfire smoke rendering breathing unpleasant but whose eerie light heightened colors. The garden is a reliable rest and release valve, a place of comfort at being alive. Why do I sometimes resent it?

SIGH. PK AND I ARE STILL TALKING TO OURSELVES AND EACH OTHER ABOUT SERIOUSLY CURTAILING GARDENING.  NOT GIVING IT UP ENTIRELY, BUT NEXT YEAR RATHER THAN 13 TOMATO PLANTS WE'LL HAVE 3 OR 4. ZUCCHINI - 1, WE ARE, I BELIEVE, MOVING CLOSER TO THE REALITY OF TURN, TURN, TURN. A TIME TO PLANT A TIME TO REAP. OR NOT.

Earlier posts about feasting from the garden

Our go-to salsa recipe - We keep returning to this one, cutting back on the black beans

Tomato Love Casserole - Too good!

Rich, thick homemade marinara sauce - this precedes the recipe above, but is still good, using Roma tomatoes.

Eggplant Parmesan with Low-Carb notes - I went through a serious low-carb period and posted lots of recipes. If you'd like to see some, type "low-carb" into the Search box on the upper lefthand corner of the page.  Warning: some of the older posts have lost their photos. No idea why. 

Ratatouille with Rosemary - Roasted, not fried. 

spaghetti squash lasagna is here - Our spaghetti squash crop failed this year, but half a squash is all that's needed for this and most recipes. I hear they have spaghetti squash down at the Farmer's Market.