The last lemon

July 8, 2008

Here's my garden as of June 3. That's mint on the left -- peppermint, spearmint and chocolate mint. I thought mint wouldn't make it through a South Dakota winter. I was wrong.

The garden includes strawberries, various tomato and pepper plants, celery, lettuce, radishes and a lot of herbs which I love to cook with -- chives, mint, oregano, tarragon, thyme, chervil, cilantro, lemon balm and lemon verbena and lavender. Some are for eating -- others just for smelling! When I planted this in June, I did not consider how important it might become.

There are still nectarines in the refrigerator and for dinner, I made salmon which we already had as well. I did, however, add a local flavor of using tarragon, lettuce, chives and chervil for our salad. I put two huge sprigs of tarragon in with the salmon along with lemon then wrapped in foil and cooked for 15 minutes at 425. Really delicious. That was my last lemon! Not a lot of citrus in the Black Hills.

I also had some bulgar in the freezer with some roasted tomatoes from last years garden so we had those too. If I had not started this, I may not have even thought to look for the bulgar. So I think that's good.

First thing on the list is finding a local dairy. We are almost out of milk.