Heather, rock cress, emerging day lilies and the bright note of Siberian draba in a shaft of sunlight making a promising beginning for the season. In August this garden is a mass of foliage, but right now each color and texture sits in a frame of wood chips and gravel. This is probably my most successful garden and I could spend all my time here, convincing all these plant forms to live together and share territory. Humans tend to see vegetation as benign, but Napoleon had nothing on a healthy stand of rock cress.
Tonight at 7:30, near dark with a waxing gibbous moon hazed over by high clouds, a pack of coyotes went off across Somes Sound. They must have been chasing something because the singing continued as the sound dropped off in the distance. The neighbor’s dogs yipped and all us mammals cocked an ear to judge if the pack was coming closer or fading away. It’s a big island, good to know there is enough space for a small pack of scavengers.
Common Sorrel or Garden Sorrel (Rumex acetosa) Sorrel has been in cultivation for centuries. It has a strong lemon taste (some people think it tastes like kiwi) due to a high concentration of oxalic acid. I picked about 2 cups of leaves (packed), sauteed chopped onions and garlic chives (also up in the garden) in butter, made a roux with a little flour, added chicken stock and white wine and added the chopped sorrel. Serve on buttered toast points.
Planted the first seeds out today. The thermometer registered 50 F but you’ll notice there is still quite a bit of snow on the ground (that little drift is right below the thermometer).