Vegetables

If you get the spinach fresh from the garden, picking the young and tender leaves, it is a great salad base. I have never done the dandelion leaves but understand it is very good to purify your liver.

2752 Strawberry Plants are PLANTED! In honor of them, and because I want to, I am posting the story of Cora The Cabbage;


Cabbage Row

It was perfect weather for cabbages. Sunny days, crisp, moonlit nights, almost cold. The stars shone as brightly as they ever did down upon the cabbages. The whole of Cabbage Row was hunkered in for the night, waiting for the dew of morning, stretching their roots and relaxing, drinking in the lovely fluids of the earth. Life was good!

The sun rose bright and shining in the east and every cabbage there stretched out their leaves and praised God for the sunshine and the new day. It was a day like every other day, of sucking up sunshine, making new leaves. All was well on Cabbage Row.


Down at the end of Cabbage Row, near the part that was not any longer part of the Row, lived Cora. She was a Cabbage that had come up without cultivation. In other words, (gasp) she was a wild one. Cora did not know she was a wild one. She just knew she lived at the end of Cabbage Row.

One day, Cora said to the other Cabbages, " I want to go somewhere!" Well, you can imagine what an unusual idea this was for any Cabbage, who felt rooted to the spot on which they were planted. In fact, they guffhawed the idea of going anywhere at all, had many rude and impertinent opinions about the going of somewhere, anywhere, and where was a cabbage to go anyway, and all these opinions were freely expressed.

Cora folded her leaves over her head and calmly said, " I think I will go to Seed". My grandmother bloomed and went to Seed, and not only that, she came back from Seed!"

The silence that came from this calm statement lasted a long time.

Some innate, inbred, deep rooted urge stirred in the Cabbages. They would bloom! They would go to Seed..

They would return.

Love,
Betty

How cute, Betty. I'm not ready to 'go to seed' yet, however. My children are far-flung enough to have accomplished that for me.

Dear Zada,
No cabbage are you!
If I were to be a vegetable, I would be an artichoke. What a lovely and big thistle I would be! Purple! Six inches side to side. Bumble Bees would love me and I them. What a love affair we would have, the bees and me, I would waft my perfume and they would come and admire, have a taste of my nectar and go home drunk.

One lone artichoke, the most famous thistle this side of Tallehassee. Who would have known her name was ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Can someone guess the name?

Love,
Betty

It wouldn't be Betty, by chance?

You must be a distant relative of mine Betty. I was born Shelagh Thistlethwaite (thwaite is old English for a field).

Are you saying you're a thistle in a field of tulips?

This is crocus walk in Southport (Lancashire) Botanical Gardens:



A field of purple without the thorns!

I will pick the peas and bury them quickly. I hate them so much.
The carrots, tomatoes, lettuce ,brocolli asparagus and spinach will do for me.

Shelagh wrote:

You must be a distant relative of mine Betty. I was born Shelagh Thistlethwaite (thwaite is old English for a field).

I am lonesome for my English house: 9 Thistle Close Hemel Hempstead.

Hi Alice,

Good to see you. I hope you are well and enjoying life. Here's a postcard for you from old Hemel Hempstead:

Shelagh,

How beautful--thank you.

Best,

Alice

Shelagh, what a wonderful postcard.

Alice, I can see why you would miss it! I can just see you out in a garden picking peas. Just before you dig a hole to put them in!

Zada,

My beautiful English garden had no peas in it.
That was the charm of it.

I lived in Hemel Hempstead years ago - in Bennetts End in 1975 for 4 moths and...um...somewhere not far from there in 1977 for about 7 months, it was a great place to be!

I think I have decided on a name for the vegetable business.


EASY PICKIN'S

What do you all think?
Love,
Betty

Betty, I love it! Do you plan to have any asparagus? I love the stuff, but it is usually too expensive to buy and I know it can be difficult to grow.

A great name, Betty, but I doubt if the picking is all that easy.

Dear Zada,
No asparagus here. Too warm! It would have to snow once in a while. I remember as a child going out into the snow and finding wild asparagus. It tasted like tobacco leaves to me, then, but I love asparagus now. It is 4.00 a pound.

Dear Dick,
I have picked vegetables in fields and not any of it was easy, pleasant, fun, and all of it involved bending double and lots of sweating and trodding through mud and dirt and hauling the pick back through a quarter to half a mile to the weigh station.

Oh! my little operation here is pristine! No mud, no bugs, no bending much, a variety of produce to select and pick, no chemicals, no dirt, and each little plants gets the best nourishment it can absorb. I love this stuff!
It is amazing the amount of food that one seed will provide given water and the right nourisment. I am really convinced this is the better way to feed the world.
One day the population will demand the farm land be housing land, and yet, all those people will need to eat to survive. It is only logic that says producing food has to take up less space and be more efficient.

I have a small operation. But, if a person had 300 acres of vertical farming, it would equal 1500 acres of dirt farming.

I will never be rich in my life time with this endeavor. But, you know, I will have enhanced my life and the lives of any dreamer that comes near me and sees the hope I have in this little stuff that I do.

Tomorrow, I will have to pick the green beans.
Love,
Betty

EASY PICKIN'S?
I love the name!!

I can not believe I missed this when it came out ... I love veggies.

I like spinach leaves instead of lettuce (though I like green leafy lettuce too) in salad and on sandwiches. LOVE tomatoes, all kinds! I'll take broccoli, carrots, green beans, green & red peppers, and all onions. I LOVE squash, all kinds ... and pumpkin.

Oh man! Making myself hungry ...

Easy Pickin's sounds fabulous Betty! I think your operation is really neat and wish you plentiful veggies and fruit and oodles of customers!

Great name, Betty! Perfect.

JoElle, I with you on all those veggies but the pumpkin. Maybe I've
just never had it prepared right... it always tastes like a candle
melted into it. Even my grandmother made pumpkin pie with sweet
potatoes... LOL

Betty,
good name. But as you pointed out, it is not easy but lots of hard work, however that will help keep your young and healthy good looks.

Brew, I love Pumpkin pie--it was always my favorite. Until I had sweet potato pie, that is!

zadaconnaway wrote:

Brew, I love Pumpkin pie--it was always my favorite. Until I had sweet potato pie, that is!

I love sweet potato pie!! And sweet potatoes and yams are sooo good for you.

Mmmm I also love acorn squash with brown sugar and maple syrup!