When Life Gives You Onions, Saute Them

My garden's been a disaster this year.

Since the Spring of Gorgeous Lettuces--and yes, they were--it's been the summer of my discontent. There are no tomatoes in my garden; not a single tomato plant made it up through the soil. Nor did any carrots. Two zucchini plants poked their heads through, but they produced nothing. Two bean plants made it up, as well, and even put forth about 10 scrumptious green beans before turning brown and giving up the green-bean ghost. The dill I planted barely broke through the ground before dying. And while one of my basil seeds actually turned into a reasonably productive basil plant, all I can say is, really? Only ONE basil plant? After all those sown seeds?

It's been sad. I'll go even farther and say it's been downright depressing. Most of what I've accomplished in previous years has been more or less accidental, rarely planned-for, rarely thought out. But it's happened, and we've enjoyed the fruits of my accidental gardening since we moved into this house.

And then I went back to work, taking whatever gardening mojo I'd had with me, apparently. Because what remains at my house--this Dead Zone, this place where no green goodness grows any more--seems to have resulted from my inability to do a daily garden check for areas that need a little TLC or even to do anything resembling regular weeding. We don't have a real irrigation system in my garden, which worked before, because I'd notice some wilting, and I'd do a little extra hand watering in addition to whatever hits the garden when we water the lawn every two to three days. Worst of all, I planted when I had time, not when the time was right...and that, I believe, was my true downfall.

I've become generally bitter about the whole thing, to be honest. In case you hadn't noticed.

Which is why I thank god for the onions.

Sometime in the late fall, I saw a bag full of onion 'bulbs' for sale at a local gardening shop. They were on serious sale; I think I paid $2 for them. I knew it was late in the season to plant them, and I didn't have room for them in my 'main' garden, so I stuck them in a rarely used patch of dirt toward the back of the yard--an area where the light isn't at all optimal for veggie-growing, and where the sprinklers barely reach.

I was pleased when I saw green shoots coming up this spring, despite the conditions. But the "70 days 'til ready for harvest" had long come and gone, and all I had to show for my initial investment were some green onions. I'd pull one or two now and then, but mostly I ignored my pathetic little patch of failed garden in favor of gnashing my teeth over my pathetic BIG patch of failed garden.

Which is why I became ridiculously excited, a few weeks back, to discover that a few of those now-wilty-looking green onions had, while my back was turned, become now-wilty-looking BROWN bulb onions...and good-sized ones, at that. But there were only a few, and while it was nice, it wasn't impressive.

Now it's impressive. Or at least it was last night, when I decided to pull the weeds that have grown amongst the onions, and realized that almost all the onion leaves themselves had browned and fallen over...which meant that they were all ready to be harvested. And so harvest I did--a good three-dozen-plus onions, most of which were the size of real, though small, onions, and a few of which were relatively impressive, fists-sized suckers. Once I'd pulled 'em from the ground (and arranged them for a couple of glamour shots, of course), I chopped three or four of them up, sauteed them in a little butter and olive oil, added chicken thighs and, later, rice, and served them to my grateful family, who might miss the sun-soaked stringbeans of yesteryear, but were nonetheless grateful for the tear-gland-assaulting onions of today.

And so all is not lost in TC's World of Accidental Gardening. MOST is lost, but not all. And for right now, that's good enough.

Garden Porn

I love gardening, but I can't really call myself a gardener...or if I could, it would only be to call myself The World's Laziest Gardener.

Here's my gardening gestalt: I'm too stressed for time to do a lot of soil prep, to plan out a garden in neat rows and hills, to start plants in little pots in the kitchen, to put everything into the garden in one weekend, to (god forbid) build raised beds and do this PROPERLY. And I'm too cheap to buy compost, mulch, or (half the time) seeds. (We have a plan to start doing our own composting, Em and I, but I refuse to pay $100 for a compost bin, and can't figure out how to build one of my own. I need a Composting for Dummies guide.)

Instead, I do everything sort of catch as catch can. I buy a packet of carrot seeds, then forget to plant them, and then--when I've just pulled out a bunch of lettuce heads (you'll see what I mean here later) and there are big gaping holes in the ground--I'll remember I have that packet from a year ago, and MAYBE the seeds are still good, and I'll just dump them into the holes and over 'em up. Sometimes they grow. Sometimes they don't.

Or I'll buy a single cilantro or basil plant, transplant it, let it flower and go to seed, and then save half the seeds in a baggie and literally toss the rest onto the ground to see if any of them will 'take.'

Repeat similar strategies for green beans, zucchini, blackberries, spinach, tomatoes, and especially lettuce. Also herbs and onions and garlic and mint. And other stuff.

As a general rule, this laziness--or maybe it would be better to call it scatteredness? stupidity? insanity?--works for me, in the sense that most years, SOMETHING yummy grows in my garden. Sometimes MANY yummy things, sometimes only one or two yummy things.

Last summer, a few lettuce heads sprung up in odd places in my garden. They were among the items I hadn't expected to do well, since all I'd done was let the lettuce I'd grown the previous year bolt, then shook the seeds out from the flowers onto the ground. Half the time I didn't even cover them. And yet, several months later came these heads of romaine lettuce. Again I let them bolt at the end of the season, and again I shook the seeds around the garden.

But I decided that wasn't enough; I wasn't sure that the lettuce would 'volunteer' to grow a third year through that sort of benign neglect. So, I also bought a packet of seeds, and at some point during the mid-winter, put those seeds in the fairly barren ground in a few areas.

Well...not only did those seeds take, but my volunteer seeds also seem to have taken, because this spring, I had a garden FULL of lettuce. I'm talking easily 60, 70 heads of lettuce. (The spinach I planted at the same time didn't do quite as well, but there was enough for a few spinach-based dinners.) There's no way I can eat that much lettuce, so it's kind of waste, though I have been bringing in bags and bags of lettuce to the office and letting people take as much as they want home.

But I was really proud of my lettuce, because it was so lush. And pretty. And there was so MUCH of it. It made me feel less like a lazy loser of a gardener--as I tend to on those years when, say, a single shriveled green pepper grows, or when I can't get a SINGLE CUCUMBER plant to survive, no matter how many I plant. And so I took pictures. Lots of pictures. And now I'm going to make you look at them, because I can. You're also required to ooh and aah over them, though I'm not sure how I'm going to police that...Just know that I'm watching you.

(See what I mean about the spinach? Not quite as robust as my lettuces! Or should that be letti?)

(That's my previously prolific parsley to the left. I'm letting it go to seed in the hopes of getting another year's worth of herb out of my initial $1.15 expense. Yes, I am cheap.)

(So many ladybugs in my garden this year! I love me some ladybugs.)

Proud Mama

Em got a bit huffy last night when--after I'd cut up and sauteed that beauty above in some olive oil and garlic, throwing in a huge handful of the stringbeans I'd also grown in my garden, peeling some tiny little carrots for N to eat, and chopping up a bunch of cilantro and parsley for garnishes--I declared that it was more than likely that I was prouder of growing that zucchini than I was of growing her and N.

Why, yes, the committee *has* bantered my name about for the Mother of the Year award. Why do you ask?

Still, it's a little bit true. Who knew I could actually GROW stuff? I mean stuff from the ground? It was sort of a given--the spectre of infertility aside--that by virtue of being female, I would have a better than even chance of birthin' babies. But growing edible foodstuffs? We are not a agrarian family, to put it mildly. This idea that I was able to take some soil, a few seeds, one or two seedlings, and water, and turn them into a bunch of green things I can feed to my family...well, it feels about as miraculous as that whole water into wine thing. If I wasn't a Jew and I actually believed in that stuff, I mean.

(Was there anyone I didn't manage to insult during this post? My children: check. Infertile women: check. Christians: check. I am on a roll today!)

Anyway, I figure that all I need now are a few chickens, a cow, and a small wheat field, and I'll be Caroline Ingalls! Go me!