This was the week the season tipped. Various signs abounded, but these were noted as confirmations of what everyone already knew. summer would end. Winter will come.
Yeah, this is the week where you realize that soon it will be harder to put aside thoughts of winter, as we notice that the bracken ferns are crisping, the night times are cooling, the sun setting sooner, and the farmer picking the flowers from the tomato plants.
But for now, summer is still here. Our bones haven’t felt a true chill, the woodstove pipe has smoked only in the first stirrings of firewood-thoughts. The days remain long, long enough that at bedtime it’s hard to believe the morning activities could possibly be from this same day.
The fall crops have yet to kick into our meals, there are more tomatoes still on the vine than we have yet harvested. And biting into the corn releases distilled sweet, sweet summertime.
The heart of summer beats strong still, but now, we know. To appreciate the swelter and the crisp, the blaze and the abundance. Last week, we could not help but to take it for granted, but this week, we are grateful to feel gratitude for the summer, in its endless array of sensations … and flavors.
what’s inside box Eleven
They are getting heavier, and harder to close …
- Holy Basil – to smell it is to love it. Put some in your pocket to waft heavenlyily throughout the day, or however you do aromatic herbs. Tea is common, but if you dry some and smoke it in a pipe please report your results. It’s also said to be good with melons …
- a random Melon – everyone gets one, but they’re all different. Some might be less flavorful that we would like, due to the rain this week. Oh hey I got waxing philosophical and failed a rain report … over 2″ this weekend!! Good for many thinga, but not for melon flavor concentration. Anyway cut yours open – it’s like some kind of musk melon. Cantalopeeque,or maybe not.
- Sweet Corn – eat it soon. As usual, I will endorse immediate, raw consumption as a peak summer pleasure, but if you’re into microwaves and butter and such you do you with no shame. But the sooner the sweeter, sleep not upon it.
- Radishes – the first of the fall crops! Might be quite spicy, unless that rain too off the edge.
- Purple Potatoes – they didn’t do as well as the other types, but at least the nature of our problems with them is an indicator of our soil’s improvement …. it’s less acidic, which makes the skin disorder the purples had more likely as an unfortunate side effect of an overall positive.
- Cucumbers – summer staples
- Zucchini – staples of summer
- Tomatoes
- Cherry Tomatoes
- Onions
- Jalepenos – since they’re a green pepper, the season’s weirdly delayed pepper-ripening matters not.
((Some of summer has been slow to arrive this year – the peppers, the eggplant, and the ground cherries, usually abundant by now, are barely starting to ripen, or even to form. A weird year, as is normal. Too little sunshine is suspected – too many clouds, with smoke and haze all too often.))
