Fresh green beans and new potatoes
It was the time of the year when tables groaned under the delights of the season: bounteous harvests of fresh corn and beans and tomatoes and June apples and plums and peaches. Sometimes the big dinners had not a single meat on the table, only vegetables in amazing abundance. I recall such days when we would come in for our noontime meal. Mother would present a table brimming with wonderfully delicious crowder peas, sliced tomatoes, fried okra, cream corn that Dad had picked that very morning, plus hot biscuits and sweet milk. After such a meal, during that hot time of day, my father would stretch out on the living room floor with a book under his head, and take a half-hour nap. Afterward, we would return to the fields refreshed and ready for an afternoon of plowing.
—Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread & Scuppernong Wine by Joseph E. Dabney
We’ve pretty much laid by the summer garden. There’s little things here and there that will need doing, but the heavy work is over for now.
I’ve always said summer is the best eating of the year because of the fresh garden truck available. The month of July is when it all comes together so nicely!
We have small ears on the corn and hopefully by the end of this month we’ll be eating them. Okra and peas are in bloom so they are on the horizon too.
The tomatoes, cucumbers, spinach, squash, zucchini, cabbage, garlic, onions, new potatoes, herbs, and green beans straight from the garden have seemed extry special this year.
For the rest of the week I’ll be sharing about some of the good things growing in our garden.
Tipper
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