I’ve had the good fortune to go through an entire Texas growing season, and have learned a great deal. I’m a Northerner, see, and my childhood gardens were no more than small flower beds around the house. As an adult, I’ve mostly had a 4’X 8′ balcony, enough for a couple of long boxes of impatiens or pansies, different color combos every year. Recently I’ve tried container tomatoes from seed (nurtured indoors for weeks) or pot and had fair to middling success, given that the growing season is so short I had to move two plants in for the winter to get just a few more tomatoes.
This Texas year ran the gamut. And it’s over already. School started again on August 4, and nearly everything in the garden is gone. I won’t chronicle the flowers, which ran from irises (tons of bearded beauties in all colors of the rainbow) to zinnias, the ubiquitous impatiens (still going strong) and Texas roses of course.
We planted starting in February, onions which we’ll have stored, hanging in the shed ’til mid-winter, red and yellow. Beets. Early growers were snap peas and salad greens, both long gone, and a bit of asparagus. Potatoes, harvested and eaten already. We grew chard which was mostly left alone by the bugs. Why? Because I added cavolo nero (Tuscan or dinosaur kale) to the mix and it only served as a decoy. My beloved cavolo nero was bitten down to nubs before I could harvest a leaf.
The basil was profound and long-lasting. Three plants are near the end, the rest are gone to the bumblebees. We still have some marjoram, oregano and parsley, but the sage has already been dried. We had one watermelon, a tad overripe, that finally disappeared from the bowl on the table yesterday. My favorite, cantaloupe, grew where we planted it, and volunteered all over the garden. I picked two huge ones that grew over the fence into the pasture, the other day, enough to have for breakfast this week and some was given to church folk yesterday by my in-laws.
Beefsteak tomatoes were abundant while they lasted, and the tomatillos made for some nice sauces and salsas. The few peaches went into a tasty, tangy peach dipping sauce with some frozen for winter months ahead. Now we’ve a ton of pears to process into preserves and pear butter. I always add an interesting twist on whatever is grown, expanding palates is my everlasting goal, so I’m going to try a chutney or, if really brave, a Tuscan mostarda.
Cherry tomatoes are on the wane, yet every day my husband, while watering in 98 degree heat, picks at least a hundred more. We tried eggplant, two plants donated by a grower. Big leaves, no fruit. Peppers are nearing the end, no hot ones this year, but will still grow for another few weeks, I think.
So I’m pushing the envelope. Hundred degree days mean no fall planting, unless I start seeds indoors, which I’ve done. Twelve cells with three each curly lettuce, romaine, parsley and my off-the-wall addition, radicchio Trevisano, the long red tapered leaves that’ll be great in salads. We’ll put out the plants in one bed with the lone rosemary that’s starting to thrive, probably early to mid-September for some fall greens.
As a parting gift, I give to you my seat-of-the-pants chicken and sausage “recipe” from yesterday’s dinner. I used two huge chicken breasts, cut in 1″ pieces and 1# andouille sausage, cut the same. I sauteed a home-grown onion and a large clove of garlic, minced, and removed. Dredged chicken in seasoned flour and sauteed. Poured in 1 can chicken stock. Added home-grown peppers, 1″ pieces, chopped parsley and oregano from the garden, and about a pint of halved cherry tomatoes. Salt and pepper to taste. Simmer about 20-30 minutes and you’ve a nice light chicken stew with gravy that was served over heated, leftover Spanish rice. The dish was pleasingly spicy and the entire pot disappeared for a table joined by four family members. Yum.
Here’s to fall planting, Texas style! Dee
p.s. I’ve you’ve extra pears I poached some in whole, food-processed Mandarins, orange juice and cinnamon, removed and sliced them. Boiled down the poaching liquid into a syrup and that was dessert. Just a thought. It reminded me of our cooking school venture into “pears poached in ponchos,” an elaborate affair that poached pears in bourbon. Then we made pastry, clothed each pear in a 1/2 circle “poncho” that was given an egg wash and baked while the syrup reduced for our sauce. Of course the French have to make everything elaborate! d
Cooking with Dee 