The grass was wet and soft this morning, a glorious change from the crispiness of last week. Yesterday, the rain startled me, pattering on the metal roof as I worked at my computer. I ran outside, palms out, to confirm that I heard actual raindrops and not the rattling of dry leaves. It rained until puddles formed, and then it kept raining all afternoon. Somehow rain nourishes the garden like water from a hose never can.

I worried that the ripening tomatoes would split, literally bursting as they do when they take in more water than their skins can stretch to hold, but they haven’t. And the peppers grow bigger by the day. I take back up my chant from the spring: soon, soon.

Tomorrow, you can expect to find perpetual spinach, rosemary, and carrots on my market table. I have recipes for you, too! Pick up the simple instructions for making perpetual spinach quiche and rosemary scones as well as the main ingredients – including eggs from Good Plains Farm at the table next to me. Saturday dinner: check!

The weather looks beautiful for the Broadway Community Market tomorrow, and we have a great lineup of about a dozen vendors. Come enjoy coffee and breakfast in the cool, low-humidity morning and see what everyone has to offer this week.

See you at the market!

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The brown grass crunches underfoot as I cross the yard to water the garden. When I get there, I am greeted by the sight of drooping, thirsty plants, many half-eaten by the groundhog(s) I have finally managed to exclude. The bean plants have the added stress of a bean beetle infestation, leading to a record low harvest during a time of year when I should be swimming in beans.

Honestly, it’s a pretty dismal sight. Farming is not for the faint-hearted. But farmers and gardeners everywhere have a mantra you’ve likely heard before: Next year will be better.

And I have hope yet for this season, in the form of tomato vines laden with green fruits, pepper plants just starting to flower, and cucumber tendrils eagerly reaching out in search of something to climb. Most everything that hasn’t been munched on looks healthy, if a couple weeks behind normal growth patterns. Even the second planting of beans, yet untouched by beetles, is putting on fresh leaves after being mown down by the groundhog.

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I will have beans at the Broadway Community Market tomorrow (8 a.m. – 12 p.m.), as well as carrots and perpetual spinach (chard). I’ve also harvested lots of fresh rosemary, great for chicken, fish, potatoes, eggs, and bread. If I have time to print them off, you can pick up recipes for rosemary scones and perpetual spinach quiche along with the ingredients.

The market is hosting a Christmas in July event tomorrow, and I don’t know what all the other vendors have planned, but it should be fun! For some early holiday shopping, I have handmade market and water bottle bags, dish cloths, and skillet handle covers, as well as a couple bottles of garlic salt. I might pull out some other crocheted items too.

See you at the market!

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I’m harvesting a tubful of beans each week, so come out to the Broadway Community Market tomorrow morning to pick up a quart or two. They’re delicious sautéed and mixed with a bit of ginger, soy sauce, and sweet chili sauce or simply steamed with a little butter and salt (make that garlic salt!).

The first few zucchini ripened this week as well, and I pulled up another couple bunches of sweet, crisp carrots. And of course, the Perpetual Spinach chard is still going strong. It’s a great summer green.

While we don’t have any ripe tomatoes yet, the vines are heavy with green fruit that will hopefully start blushing any day now. The okra, too, shows promise, with its creamy white blooms opening up and the first little pod forming. Unfortunately, the cucumbers and peppers got off to a slow start this year, but both are finally starting to bloom.

Everything, of course, depends on me keeping the resident groundhog out. Every time I go out to the garden, it has dug another hole under the fence and nibbled more leaves off the beans and sweet potato vines. But I seem to have foiled it last night, so fingers crossed it doesn’t find another way in.

See you at the market!