independence (garlic and peas)

Wouldn't it be amazing if this garden actually fed us?  Of course, I would miss our weekly farmer's market: the choices, the sights, the glory of just plain shopping (oh, three dollars for those sweet, hairless carrots that I couldn't grow for a hundred?  why, sure, here you go.) - but when I think of the word Independence, the current state of this country is not what comes to mind.

On the 4th, though, I did do a lot of harvesting.

Jeff estimated that there were 15# of shelling peas in that bag.  I picked and picked.  He shelled and shelled.  I could feel the difference between the snap peas and shelling peas with my hand: the plush edible pods versus the thin, leathery cases with their rattling contents.  I looked down under the sun, face pressed into the exuberantly bolting greens of spring.  Picking like milking, elbow deep, I smelled watercress, nasturtium, rocket.  Everyone says these things taste and smell 'peppery' but I think they smell only like their own selves, each its own color of green.

While I was at it, I pulled out these 17 (!) heads of garlic.  David hung them by a bungee in the garage. Now when I wheel in my bike, the smell in there takes me right back to the farm.

We ate this broccoli in ten minutes.  

But let's look at that garlic again, shall we?  It is giant.  Brag, brag, brag.

Hope it cures well.  Hope it tastes as good as it smells.