Garden wonders II

Weeks of warm sun. Scattered days of rain. A daily one-sided chat. It’s the right recipe for a happy garden.

Tomatoes are setting fruit and onions bulbs are bursting from the earth. Basil, cucumbers, bell peppers in red, yellow and green reach for the sky.

Seedlings are swelling past all expectation. A row of zucchini promises stir fries, casseroles and breads through the summer months. They’ll be secreted in spaghetti sauce and meatballs and lurk in chilis and stews.

Heirloom seedling tomatoes emerge – not one or two but, unexpectedly, dozens. The garden – and our appetite – isn’t big enough.

A neighbor gifts us a tomato plant he has lovingly grown in his greenhouse. We can’t refuse. What’s one more when you have thirty.

I turn my back and the beets have grown a foot high, thick stalks bright red and green. Asparagus that I gave up on weeks ago have popped up and wave their green fronds. Fennel is frothy and elbowing its way out of its bed.

Soybeans – more popularly named edamame – stay low to the ground and, unfamiliar with this crop, I’m ready to pull them out in frustration. Produce or be purged. Room is needed for tomatoes, after all. On closer look, the plants have set a full harvest of tiny pods. A reprieve is given.

The season has just begun but the garden is well underway.