Most of the gals around here wear pants. I've never been a pants person. I like skirts and dresses. I may have a huge tomboy streak in me, but I still like the feminine feel of a skirt. And there isn't a better outfit for the garden than a skirt. Today I was harvesting my lemon balm to dry for tea for winter. I couldn't hold all of it in my hands. No problem, I just fold up the bottom hem of my skirt and I have a basket. Plus they are very cool for the summer.
Today was a big harvest day so the skirt got used a lot. For tea I picked my lemon balm and the first of the chamomile blossoms. This is the first time I've grown chamomile and it smells so divine fresh. I picked peas as I've been doing everyday now and my frilly boc choi, but the biggest harvest of the day was lettuce. It is going to get to 90 today, so any lettuce that is thinking about bolting has to be harvested. I picked three heads of red sails and a few small plants of black seeded simpson. A lot of the leaves had been shredded by the recent hail, so I chuck them. I have too much lettuce anyway, no use keeping the bruised parts.
The red sails is interesting now. Earlier in the spring they were totally insect free. Now they are little microcosms. I tried to get most of the insects off before going inside, but the inevitable happened. As I plunked them down on my clean white counter, I had to play clean up as they tried to run away. The red spider mites are the funniest as they make crazy fast spirals on the counter. They were all appropriately squished. I didn't kill the spiders though, I just put them on the compost pile with the leaves they are inhabiting. Hopefully they will go eat more bad insects.
Insects are also my skirt's major flaw. For everything, even such a wonderful thing as a skirt, has a flaw. After you harvest that bunch and use your skirt as a basket, some of the insects abandon ship there too. Occasionally they get under that skirt and you show off a bit much trying remedy the situation. And turning the compost is bad. I always switch to pants for that. I really draw the line at centipedes getting anywhere near my skin.
i love wearing skirts too, but the only problem again is the bugs. they love to crawl underneath and feast on my legs.
ReplyDeleteI had tons of bugs inside of my lettuce. they were fine in the spring and early summer, but as it got hotter, the bugs and slugs (ick) crawled into the inner parts of the lettuce. sad.
your harvest looks delicious though!
Yes I had a few slugs in my lettuce too. But I take it all apart and wash each leaf very carefully before I eat it.
ReplyDeleteYou give me courage to wear my skirts into the garden.
ReplyDeleteI love skirts too but the mosquitoes are so bad this year. I find myself wearing chore boots rather than sandals when I head toward the lower half of the yard.
Really cute with a knee length skirt. I'm thinking garden go-go.
I also skirts, though not when I'm doing the heavy work--then it's shorts. I can't believe I haven't done the basket thing--
ReplyDelete--Kate