Rituals

Every morning (first thing, still blurry-eyed and vague- usually in either my pajamas or a robe or, sometimes, a towel) I wander out the back to check the veggie patch. New flowers? New leaves? Good growth? Bugs where? Any zucchinis that need harvesting before they grow to the size of my arm? Mostly though this visit is a zucchini-sex expedition. Open girl-flowers on the lebanese and patty-pan plants get pollinated with the pistol of the boy-flower, a slightly tricky business and one that always makes me feel like I should be asking for consent first. Recently, since I've discovered the fun of cooking with zucchini flowers, I'll also pull off all the extra boy-flowers and save them for use in a recipe*.

On my way out the door to work I pause on the porch to water the tomato plants and eat as many ripe strawberries as I find (usually one or two per day). If I have time I'll scan the cherry tomato bushes and usually pull off a bulging pocket-full or two of tomatoes (they rattle around my ipod and keys and wallet and for some reason that cracks me up).

Five minutes of hanging out with growing things smoothes a lot of edges.

*: Gardening involves randomly having suspiciously gourmet ingredients around. I can't imagine ever paying for zucchini flowers, and have always sneered at snooty cookbooks that mention them, but wow, when they're growing for free in your backyard, they're tops! Although people have this odd reaction to them, as though there is something a little demented about eating flowers. What the hell, I make my zucchini plants have sex, then I eat their flowers- there's clearly no redeeming me.