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| Deck Garden |
Summer has instantly arrived over the past couple of days
in the northeast! The past two
days have been a triple H kind of a day, hazy, hot and humid. Which makes the article in yesterday’s Wall
Street Journal so perfect, Sarabeth Levine described her ideal summer salads.
I love salads and all the different dressings available
to me on a gluten-free diet! But, what I
love most of all is growing my own salad.
The sunniest spot in my yard happens to be my deck and this is where I
have all of my containers. I planted the
lettuce and cherry tomatoes last weekend.
These are both low risk, high yielding options for a brown thumb gardener
like me. I even bought a couple of
strawberry plants for fun because they grow like absolute weeds and figure I
would have a really difficult time killing them.
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| oregano, tarragon, thyme on 3/30 |
Last year I bought a bunch of herbs and just kept them in
their little starter pots. I did not
know that most herbs were perennials until a summer dinner party when the
hostess showed me her herb garden and said she had planted it six years
ago. She advised me to throw the herbs
into a real pot with some good soil and then see what happened in the spring.
At the end of March, when we started doing some spring
cleaning, I grabbed the pots that I had put on the side of the house and lifted
the collection of dead leaves that had gathered on top to throw into the green
waste bags. I was so surprised to see
all of these little green leaves pushing up through the soil!
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| Mint 3/30 |
Mint, tarragon, thyme, oregano and rosemary had all
started growing anew! Two months later,
the herbs are absolutely flourishing. As
I wait for my lettuce and tomatoes to grow, the Wall Street Journal Summer
Salad article had some great dressing ideas using these herbs. One was to make a blender dressing using
fresh tarragon is you are adding salmon or chicken to the salad. For a basic oil and vinegar, throw some basil,
parsley and oregano into the blender. I
just planted the parsley and basil so I will have to wait a week or two for
that dressing.
For bitter greens, like arugula, lemon juice and a
lighter oil such as canola oil, whisked together with a little salt and pepper
is a nice combination.
My biggest problem with salads is that only one of four
of my kids would be happy to see a big chopped salad with some chicken or fish
on top. For that solution, I will turn
to other articles on advice for getting picky tweens and teens to eat
vegetables.
Kendall Egan
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