Blessings from the Garden

Our garden, though not much to look at, being a few plants here, a few plants stuck there, and eight gourd plants that are taking over everything in between, continues to supply us with fresh vegetables. A hundred times now, I think I've discovered every single green bean, claiming the plants are done, only to go out there a day or two later and have another handful for the soup. And the tomatoes rival anything out of a horror movie. Everyday there is more and more of them. Yesterday I made a barley dish (ptcakes barley surprise -- open refrigerator -- retrieve veggies -- add to pot) with our own peppers, green beans and corn. (we had sliced tomatoes on the side.) The peppers and green beans were fresh. The corn was an experiment. We dried it off the ear.

Earlier in the season our dozen or so corn plants produced some wonderful ears, and then some shorter ones that I called scrub corn. Instead of letting these ears wither on that plant, we picked them, stripped off the kernels and dried them in a special handmade bowl that has an S crack in the bottom. Allowing air to flow around the kernels. I had seen them dry corn at Plimoth Plantation and figured we'd give it a try. The texture and flavor the kernels added to this week's barley surprise was in itself -- surprising.

It's interesting and thought provoking, with all our modern conveniences and progress, we can still learn a few things from the Pilgrims.