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After two years of trying, we decided that our yard is just not right for a summer garden.
There’s not enough sun, space or good soil.

Luckily, this year a community garden opened up in the little park just around the corner. After some time on the wait list, we received our plot. And it’s just right.

We’ve planted eight varieties of heirloom tomatoes, purple bush beans, padron, anaheim and ancho peppers as well as zucchini.

A wonderful added bonus is that we’ve gotten to meet several townspeople we hadn’t had the opportunity to meet before.

All the gardeners are getting together tomorrow evening for a summer solstice celebration. If it’s not too hot for this 8.5+ month pregnant lady to attend, I’ll post photos of the garden party later on this week.

You might know that we’ve been experimenting with margaritas.
Well, we’ve grown a little tired of them.

And as we have an abundance of mint in the garden, we’ve moved on to mojitos.
Plus, they’re about as perfect as a summertime cocktail can be.

(Did you know mint is very easy to grow? See hints below.)

Here’s how to make the best mojito, makes one cocktail:

Ingredients
1/2 oz simple syrup (see simple syrup directions below)
1 1/2 oz unflavored white rum
Juice of 1 lime
Soda water or 7Up*
A handful of fresh mint

Rinse the mint, and gently crush (saving one sprig for garnish)
Put the mint in a tall, clear, plain glass
Add the simple syrup, rum, and lime
Muddle
Fill glass with ice
Fill glass with soda water or 7Up
Garnish with the mint sprig

We recommend using a straw so you don’t get all that mint in your mouth.
Cheers!

Simple Syrup Directions:
Take equal parts sugar and water
Gently boil for 5 minutes
Let cool
Store in the fridge, up to 4 weeks

*Tom likes to use soda water. I prefer my cocktail a bit sweeter so I use diet 7Up.

Hints on Mint:

• Plant only in a container. If you plant it in your garden, it will take over the entire yard. And you will never be able to eradicate it.
• Try several different varieties. We like the standard spearmint & peppermint, but also pineapple mint and chocolate mint.
• The more you cut mint, the more it will grow. If the plant is getting leggy, trim it back. It will become more bushy (= produce more).
• If you’re not going to use the fresh mint you trimmed, you can freeze it. Just chop it, put a bit into each cube of an ice cube tray, cover with water and freeze. Once frozen, dislodge from the tray and store in a zippy in the freezer. The cubes are a great addition to your iced tea.

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Finally! We harvested our first tomato:

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This season’s first harvest from the vegetable garden:

This weekend, we noticed the first of our heirloom tomatoes.

It’s officially (finally) summertime here in the Napa Valley.

Seems to me that, this year, a lot more folks are doing vegetable gardens.

Maybe I’ve just been paying more attention, maybe it’s the ever growing popularity of everything organic/slow food/locavores/food porn or maybe it’s thestupideconomy.

Anyway, this is our first year of gardening in the new place. And it’s been a challenge–so different than in past years.

And I realized that, with last month’s focus on kid-friendly Napa Valley, I haven’t done a garden update recently.

So, we’ve been harvesting the pole beans and are almost at the point where it’s “Are we having green beans again tonight? Really?–again?” The zucchini and green zebra tomatoes should be pickable this week. The other heirloom tomatoes are not doing that great; we think there’s just not enough sun in this yard. But we’ve been harvesting herbs on a daily basis since March.

In all, we have some success and some failure–but we are learning a lot this year.

And, most importantly, we are enjoying our garden.

Zucchini Blossoms

Basil

Pole Beans

Green Zebra Tomatoes