I may have had a couple of zucchini’s left… but the mother-lode of the season was clearly, hands-down, the Nasturtiums.

Yes, our front yard looks amazing this fall… which might explain why I had so many squireels snacking on my front porch?

This was taken before the squirrels arrived…

Desperate to get those flowers and leaves harvested before the frost, I made pesto, I dried them (storing them in little glass jars),

and then I came up with these nasturtiums quesadillas.

Wash the ants off the nastriums and let them drain.

First brown chopped onions on a lightly oiled hot skillet.
After 5 minutes, add some black beans.
Remove the beans and onions and set aside.
Next, throw the tortillas onto a hot skillet, and top with your favorite cheese — something like Monterrey Jack, or even better — Pepper Jack.
Next sprinkle the nasturtium flowers and leaves, and fold the tortilla over.

Once cheese has melted, cut into strips, and sprinkle with Paprika.

Miraculously, just before the frost hit here, I still had some zucchinis thriving in the yard — with blossoms.

So, I made these. And I ate them up.

To make them, slice your zucchini into little rectangular shapes.

Mix some olive oil, basil,  Parmesan cheese, salt and bread crumbs — yes… I used Rice Chex — don’t ask me why and put on top. Top with a blossom. You could still use Nasturtium blossoms if you have some left.

If you don’t like the raw crunch of the zucchini, just pre-bake the zucchini before adding the toppings.

The Nasturtium seeds I planted back in February did make it, but it seemed to take forever. They are now in full, I mean, abundant, sidewalk sweeping view all the way up to my front walk, where four very large vibrant pumpkins are sitting, right below the orange and black spidery-feathery wreath.

I’d show you a picture of the Nasturtium landscape in my front yard, but the sky has been gray for so many days, the picture wouldn’t turn out — but it will come.

I can’t resist picking a few blooms for breakfast lunch and dinner, sprinkling them on top of my eggs, the chicken, or whatever I’m eating. And I haven’t even got around to making the Nasturtium Pesto yet.  So far, my all time favorite meal with Nasturtium flowers — and leaves — is when they are sitting under a layer of caramelized fennel and red onions, splashed with lots of red wine vinegar and sea salt.

Not sure how I stumbled across this meal, but it is fabulous — the sharp, tangy hot flavor of the nasturtiums are perfectly balanced against the natural sweetness of the caramelized fennel and onions.

To make this delicious salad, slice the fennel and onion and throw them on a pan with a bit of olive oil, and set salt. Keep the pan on medium low, and just let them cook down. Flip them over, and let them get very brown and golden. The sugars are being released — or created… who knows?

Next, pick and rinse your Nasturtium flowers and rinse in salt water. Chop them up loosely, and put on a plate. Add the fennel, onions, red wine vinegar and salt… and enjoy.

My friend Karen once had, what I now refer to, as the “mother-lode” of Basil harvest. She handed be an armful bouquet of Basil… and she still had more to spare. I have yet to experience such a harvest again. So now, because Basil can be so persnickety in the garden, and because I love it so much, I rarely take Basil for granted. When it’s here, and it does grow, I use it or save it.

But how do you save Basil? You can always make batches of pesto, leaving out the cheese, and freeze portions… that works well…but what if you just want to preserve the Basil leaves?

Freezing makes it slimy… and can’t even imagine blanching it. Drying Basil strips the herb of its flavor, stripping away the oils. Then, I found this…

perserving basil in salt.

The salt, unfortunately, does not take on the flavor of the basil, but the basil leaves do maintain their flavor. So, you can re-use the salt. Plus, who wouldn’t want to open the freezer in January, and see a jar like this, just waiting to be topped on a pizza.

To preserve Basil in salt, simply layer sea salt in a jar, and add basil leaves. Keep the salt jars in the freezer and use the basil within six months.

This heat is unbearable right now, but I love summer. There are surprise blooms everywhere. I find it almost impossible to believe that these hydrangeas

were growing in my backyard. These flowers look so luscious and perfect — like something you might find as a prop for a Lauren Bacall movie or something. But, no, they’re just here, waiting to be discovered among the vines, and daylilies in our backyard. I picked them until I grew tired of picking them. There are more out there that will probably get destroyed by the heat this week. But this bouquet is just enough… sitting in this old pottery pot, drying, to give us beauty for one year, in the the master bedroom.

It’s a big birthday weekend. My husband and I are three days apart… and there are more flowers popping up around here than we can candle. There were the Sunflowers he brought

home from the market. Love the vase? An idea I found on Pinterest, of course. (I tried to do the tape thing… to get the blooms to stand up by themselves… but how does sticky tape stick to a wet vase? This solution, each bud in an individual pop bottle, tied together with raffia, worked better.

The Nasturtiums are just starting to open up… and berries. Berries are sort of like flowers for the palette. You should of seen the leftover platter from our family’s traditional Angel Food Birthday Cake, which is always is covered in berries. I can’t think of a better time to have a Birthday…

Our January birthday little guy, who loves that his birthday is right after Christmas, has just figured out how lucky Mom and Dad really are, to have their birthdays in the summer. Poor little guy — because he’s right, I can’t think of a better time to have a birthday.

Simply mix mozzarella cheese balls and cherry tomatoes, and cover in balsamic vinegar (2T) olive oil (1T) , pepper and salt to taste.

Pick, wash and dry fresh Basil Leaves (either from your garden or your local farmer’s market).

Add a toothpick… push through the basil leaf, the tomato, the mozzarella, and the basil leaf….

share with friends, and eat.

Growing a salad is one of the best ways to save on groceries. How many times do you buy lettuce at the store, intending to make a salad, only to find the greens soggy and wet before you get around to making the salad? Or, even if you do make that salad, you still have way too many greens than you need — and they are tossed. Waste of money!

Growing your greens takes up much less space than you realize, and many of the plants here are actual “flowers” and vines than can be planted in flower pots and flower borders, or can be incorporated into flower pots. Your virtual salad bar gives you the benefit of fresh greens that you can snip exactly when you want them. Plus, considering that greens love cold weather, they are one of the earliest, and latest vegetables you can grow… they will keep your plate full throughout a long growing season.

Lettuce, the traditional green, however, does not like heat. So, you’ll need to find some alternatives that will keep your salad bar intriguing, flavorful and thriving.

Nasturtiums: The leaves and flowers are completely edible, and have a slightly peppery taste similar to arugula.  (Here’s the recipe for nasturtium pesto.) But nasturtiums are much easier to grow than Arugula.

Pick up seed packets at your grocery store, soak the seeds in water overnight, and plant in flower pots or flower beds. They are beautiful. Sprinkle seeds with a bit of cayenne pepper… squirrels will dig up your seeds and eat them after you’ve planted them.

Pea Shoots: Before the pea pods are formed on your peas, snip off some leaves… these leaves have a soft texture, and an almost “creamy” fresh taste.

Flowers: Violets, zucchini blossoms, daylilies and bachelor buttons are just a few of the edible flowers. Yes… they are edible. Even the Tiger Lilly. You can fry flowers too. Here’s the recipe.

New Zealand Spinach: There is an amazing “warm weather” drought-tolerant spinach called New Zealand Spinach, also known as tetragonia, ice plant, everbearing spinach, everlasting spinach, perpetual spinach, Della Nuova Zelanda. (Find the seeds here, New Zealand Summer Spinach.)

Traditional spinach that you find in the produce section) does not like heat. New Zealand is beautiful….like a sweet potato vine, and grows prolifically, and gets beautiful white petunia-looking flowers. The taste is very, very yummy. This is a must have for flower pots.

Herbs: Goes without saying that when your mint, sage and chives start to overgrow, they can be cut up and thrown into salads. Or better yet, toss them onto an olive-oil coated hot skillet with some day old bread and make croutons.

Make Chive-blossom vinegar for your salad… recipe here.

Green leaves on growing vegetables: You may be growing carrots, radishes, broccoli and beets, but until those veggies show up, you can take a bit of the leaves off to throw in your salads. Don’t take them all, of course, but just enough to fill out your salad to make it more interesting.

Greens: If you aren’t using pesticides, dandelion greens, I’m sure, are growing somewhere in your yard. Delicious fried in bacon grease!

Once you start thinking of your flower beds as greens, you’ll be able to stop buying them from the produce section…

Since I read a Container Garden Book last spring, my eyes have been looking for opportunities to grow edibles in beautiful spots, rather than regulating them to a garden plot with rows. Now, I’m seeing edible pots and edible landscapes everywhere. Here, on vacation, lettuce for the salads are grown in containers.

Rosemary lines the pathway to our hotel room,

and Sage, (see the humming bird) sits outside as the focal point of the patio. . This seems to be a trend.

Now, when I see a flower pot full of annuals, or a swath of landscape that is barren of anything edible, I almost think it’s a waste of edible space. I believe that as soon as it’s warm enough for stuff to grow, I want to throw seeds in the pots — so that I can start harvesting fresh greens and herbs for our home cooked meals. I must say, that path of rosemary that lines the door, is a breathtaking smell, and a great way to start the morning.

It’s not that we don’t like the perfume and the flowers and the jewelry — we do!!! But sometimes, the best gifts come wrapped in surprising packages. Case in point. My husband looked at me, and said, “I can help you plant your garden this weekend.” The summer plants, that I haven’t got around to sowing yet.  The sweetest words… my girlfriend was jealous when I told her.

I started thinking about ways husbands/kids can show love and appreciation for mom without even spending a dime, and realized how shocking the list would appear to the kid and husbands. Of course, there are  the obvious things like, cleaning out the fridge, scheduling doctor’s appointments for the kid’s , and making sure the toilet seat is down when you enter the bathroom– but let’s get more imaginative. Planting a garden ranks on the top of my list, and my eyes are all starry eyed just thinking of anything else. And, to be honest, it’s not a gesture that I would have ever thought of if you had asked me, “what would you like.” But that’s what I want… I decided, as soon as I heard the words. What do you want, that you don’t think you do?

Remember that crazy day, back in February, when the snow had melted enough to show me dirt, and I threw a bunch of seeds outside? Then, it snowed, and it iced, and the weather was rotten? Well, the seeds have made it. They even survived those hard-working men in my house who threw on a pile of mulch on top of their frail little stems.

So, when I say “my pantry is growing,” I mean, my pantry is growing.

Here are my beets…and remember, as the leaves grow, I can use these greens to fill my breakfast shakes (just remembering not to take all the greens, so the beet can keep growing.) Roots are like vegetables that just keep on giving. I love these kinds of greens… with lettuce, there’s no surprise at the end. But with beets, I get the greens,  which I can pulverize just before I harvest the beets, and the beet.

Soon, I’ll be able to stop running to the store, just to be radishes. The trick was, I’m sure, just to pick those root-bound cold-season vegetables….

Now, I’m off to carve out a bigger space for the beans and zucchini. I can barely wait to start eating some flowers!