Suddenly, Summer

The rose is named Fourth of July.

Summer is certainly here, even without the solstice to mark it. The other day I decided I wanted to make tabbouleh and after wrestling with the spelling for a while found a recipe in Epicurious (which uses"tabouli"). I had tomatoes--and was surprised to discover that everything else fresh--scallions, mint and an absurd amount of parsley--was available in the garden. It was very good; think I'll make it again tonight. The mint, oddly enough, is being strangled by an aggressive Montauk daisy; I bought a little bit more and put it someplace else.

The farm stand I frequent has his own strawberries plus beans and peas and peaches from various places only a little further south. We wait expectantly for corn, which won't be in locally for a month or so.

Like Jean, I'm sure we don't save money on our own gardening especially since Roger has invested heavily in an irrigation system both for our new landscape plantings and for his vegetable garden. But it does taste much better and, like Wren (one of Jean's commenters), I like the fact that there are no mouldering bunches of half used cilantro and parsley in the fridge. We have already finished off the spinach and radishes--spinach gets bitter when it boults, which surprises me. We have herbs, especially parsley, and snow peas at the moment and are looking forward soon to little carrots and beets. The potato plants are spectacular this year and the baby beans very enthusiastic. It's a nice time in the garden, June, before the bugs come and things turn brown or too big. I do have aphids on the roses but they don't seem to do much harm.

I can't help mentioning that we are bound to have too many zucchini (courgettes to the foreign reader)--that's the inevitability of location, not skill. Maybe we should try some of the striped ones.

Not much new in the way of politics except for the fact that I'm already tired of how easy the press goes on McCain. Surely that can't last all the way through.