Published April 21, 2012.
You might remember a blog post last year entitled "Mint Fail", in which I lamented the abuse my mint suffers in the hands of a neglectful gardener. I happily report that the very same plant that almost passed away in 2011 is still with us and looking good! Tastes good, too.

A few days ago I needed to bring an appetizer to a poolside get-together with friends. Resisting the urge to go the store-bought chips and salsa route, I opened the fridge to see what was on hand, keeping in mind the mint and other herbs growing right outside. Among our oversupply of fruit was a spare cantaloupe, and we also had some salami (thinly sliced salami is great on a spinach and feta salad, by the way). I was first introduced to the glorious combination of cantaloupe and prosciutto years ago in France, though I'd never recreated the dish at home. Salami is close enough to prosciutto, I told myself, and my appetizer quickly materialized.

I chose to make mini skewers with the three ingredients, stacking a cube of cantaloupe, a bite of salami, and a piece of fresh mint on each toothpick. The first taste test didn't go so well, as evidenced by my husband's initial reaction: "That tastes weird, Anne." So I tweaked the proportions to adjust for the salty salami and the overpowering flavor of mint. In the end, I wanted the cantaloupe to be the star player, with capable assists from the other two flavors.

Once the balance was right, it took great restraint to keep from eating the appetizer before actually bringing it to the party. This light and refreshing appetizer was perfect for a pool party on a hot day. Bonus points for being pretty, too, with the bright green mint and orange melon sandwiching the marbled salami.

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Published March 26, 2012
Is it possible that I haven't yet written about the grapevines in our backyard? How could I have overlooked something that brings us such happiness?

I guess it was about three years ago when a strange package arrived on our doorstep. "Oh, those are just the grapevines I ordered," said my husband, as though we lived on lots of Sonoma Valley acreage. I know what you're thinking: "The Cravens are growing muscadines. Good for them." Erroneous! Muscadines would be too easy, too obvious.

If you've followed this blog for any length of time, you know that we don't always follow the rules in our backyard, meaning we plant what we want, when we want, usually ignoring the guidelines established by master gardeners. In fact, my husband once gave gardening expert Louis Miller a hearty chuckle when he phoned in to his radio talk show and brought up our grapevines. Malbec and viognier—those are the two varietals in our Baton Rouge backyard.

Though we are far, far away from Argentina and France, places where these grapes grow in profusion, I am here to say that our vines are doing quite well, thank you very much. If the baby grapes we see now actually thrive and make it until fall, it will be the first year that our vines have produced any fruit. We are ecstatic, to say the least. Grape stomping party at our house!

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Published February 27, 2012
It's been about four months since my last post, but before you report me to the delinquent blogger police, please read on. Hubby and I welcomed our daughter to the world in November, and it turns out that tending to a winter garden isn't a priority when there's a newborn nearby. I did manage to take our little girl— who we'll call Sweet Pea for this blog— into the garden with me for two major weeding sessions. She had a blast in our humble plot, and I don't think I imagined that. Situated smack dab in the middle of the garden, Sweet Pea sat peacefully in her bouncy seat, smiled at the arugula and cooed at the towering pine and oak trees. I'm pretty sure she'll weed before she can walk if I keep letting her observe my work in the garden.

Oscar: Garden Enemy No. 1

The second major development since my last post involves another family member: Oscar the dog. You may remember that Hubby erected a short picket fence around the garden to help our two dogs realize that they weren't needed in that part of the domain. Now Oscar has never been the type of dog to test his boundaries, but this winter he figured out that the fence is plenty short enough for him to hop over. (He probably figured this out in his abundant spare time; "second-class citizen" best describes his new status since Sweet Pea came along.) So Oscar is certainly digging around in the garden, and that's not all he's doing out there, if you know what I mean. A new, taller garden border is now required before we go ahead with our spring planting.

Speaking of, Hubby got a hot tip from Mr. Fox-Smith, executive editor of Country Roads, about the Mother Earth News website, where he found the Vegetable Garden Planner tool. At the moment I don't know the particulars of this resource (busy with baby, remember?), but I can tell you that Hubby is enamored with it. He designed our spring garden online, printed it out and even laminated it. In the pipeline for this next season are tomatoes, okra, banana peppers, cayenne, sunflowers, squash, artichokes, asparagus, lettuce, soybeans, lima beans, and there's more I'm forgetting. He's also planting some tea plants, but that deserves its own blog post. The adventure continues!

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Published October 11, 2011.
A few months ago, my husband and I laid out a drop cloth in our "back room" (a glorified utility room) and sat on the floor to plant some new seeds in the empty egg cartons that our egg-lovin' neighbors kindly supply on a regular basis. Normally we would do this kind of thing outside, but the air that weekend was too hot, thick, and mosquito-laden for our liking. I'm pretty sure this seeding session took place on a Saturday night, which I probably shouldn't admit but the truth is we had a blast.

Anyway, when very few sprouts showed themselves as the weeks passed, Michael—out of frustration—dumped the dud dirt from the egg cartons out into the garden. And there we were again, faced with the life lesson our garden so loves to shove down our throats: "If you don't at first succeed, try, try again." Michael soon ordered some more seeds, the planting of which you may have read about here, so we just moved on.

A couple of weeks after the dud dirt had been scattered, we noticed some un-weed-like green things popping up here and there in that plot, and the garden giggled as it taught us another life lesson: Mother Nature will do what she wants, so just practice a little patience. Turns out those discarded seeds weren't duds after all, just late-bloomers. Now we have a healthy patch and unorganized mix of green leaf lettuce, arugula, marigolds, plus some plant that has yet to identify itself. Friends, the arugula is wildly delicious; its nutty flavor matched only by Mother Nature's nutty behavior. Will we ever be able to pin down her tendencies and predict the future for our little garden? Doubt it. Stay tuned!

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Published September 30, 2011

I generally visit our garden early in the morning before it's too hot, and before the day's chores of work, laundry, clean, exercise, dogs, dinner, etc. get in the way. And when I say visit, that's exactly what I mean. Michael does most of the "work" while I just reap the benefits (though I did recently plant one row of cauliflower and cabbage all by my own self).

Michael, the true farmer of our little family, visits the garden several times throughout the day and really gets his hands dirty a couple of times a week. He ordered some more seeds not too long ago and was so excited when they finally arrived, and he's the type that when he gets something in his head there's nothing you can say or do to change his course. Like when he wanted to plant his new seeds the other day... after sunset... in the dark... nighttime some would call it.

"Michael, why don't you just wait until tomorrow morning and I'll help you?"

"No, it'll just take me a second."

"But can you see?"

"Yeah, it's fine."

When it went from "pretty dark" to "pitch black" outside, I went back out there to see how he was managing. With his handy portable floodlight shining on about half of the garden, and his headlamp strapped on, he was managing just fine. Barefoot, jeans rolled up, and no gloves, too. It was quite a sight. This farmer is dedicated, y'all.

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Published August 24, 2011.
The radio silence from my corner does not mean we've thrown in the towel. It just means that most plants in our garden have either flooded or burned up these past few weeks. I've had it with the frequent thunderstorms and extra-oppressive heat! As far as edibles from our backyard, the only news worth mentioning at the moment is that we have a ridiculous amount of cayenne peppers and okra to eat. Michael now has to climb a ladder to reach the okra as the plants are about as tall as our house. (Can you spot him through the okra jungle in the photo below?)

A few nights ago we put some okra on the grill for the first time, at the suggestion of the man waiting in line next to me at Zeeland Street Market recently. I did exactly as he directed: brushed the okra with a mixture of melted butter, salt, garlic, and—in our case—freshly ground cayenne pepper. We grilled them until they had some light black grill marks and then ate them like candy. Delicious!

So other than watch the okra and cayenne slowly take over our property, I enjoy following the dragonflies around with my camera, and they don't seem to be bothered too much.

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Published July 12, 2011.
Last night, my mom came over for dinner and paid our garden a compliment we won't soon forget. Mesmerized by the okra overflowing from a wooden bowl on our kitchen counter, she delicately picked one up and said, "This is market quality okra right here."

Well I'm so glad she thinks so because we're on the verge of signing up for a farmers market to unload all of our okra. Our okra plants challenge any giant sunflowers in height, and any colony of rabbits or feral cats in prolific production capability. The past few weeks, we've pickled okra, stewed okra, fried okra, and made okra-laden gumbo. Relatives, friends, and neighbors have received bundles of okra, and there's no end in sight. I guess the next step is to put baskets of the green pods and a "FREE OKRA" sign out on a roadside table in our front yard.

Fortunately, we haven't completely tired of eating okra, and it seems as though it does a body good with generous amounts of folates, fiber, vitamins C, A, and K, and manganese. (Okay- I don't really know what manganese does. Apparently it's an "enzyme activator" and that's good enough for me.)

Does anyone have a good okra recipe?

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Published June 29, 2011.
Every summer a mystery plant appears next to the steps leading from our back door down to the yard, growing alongside the monkey grass there. I haven't yanked it yet because it's lovely in its own way, even though it kind of looks like a weed. Ninety-nine percent of the time, it's just leafy, harmless and a perfect shade of green; but about once a year a single flower blooms forth from those leaves to teach me some kind of lesson. (Woe to the overzealous weeder? I don't know.) I'd swear that last year's bloom was purple, but the 2011 flower is a light pink. Pretty, isn't it? If you know what this is, please do tell.

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