A Cooking Life

Garden Report: June 16

I finished planting over the weekend, even though the weather doesn't quite warrant it (overcast and 53° at 10AM this morning). The salad greens, peas, and garlic all look happy, but I'm pretty sure I caught the tomatoes scowling at me earlier, and the eggplant look like they could use a sweater. But everything was getting potbound, and I was afraid roots would start rotting from the damp. Some of the seedlings had a fine film of white mold starting on their soil surface. So into the dirt with them all! Still no beans planted, though – they'll just rot unless the soil dries out.

Soup Weather

Our early spring seems reluctant to let go. I know summer doesn't officially start until the 21st of June, but it's not unreasonable to expect some hot sunny weather from the end of May forward. It's been mostly in the 60s, even on sunny days, with temps in the low 40s or even 30s overnight – not even warm enough to sleep with the windows open (to my mind, one of the great joys of spring). And then we keep getting days like today: grey, dark, rainy, blustery, and COLD, hovering somewhere in the low 50s. It's the kind of day that forces you into a sweater and wool socks, demands a fire in the woodstove, and marches you into the kitchen to make a pot of soup.