June Gloom and mish mash

Yes, apparently. June gloom in Philadelphia. Who knew?
My cousin David reminded me of this Southern California phenomenon when we talked on the phone this weekend. June, the beginning of Summer  presents morning overcast clouds for SoCal until about noon. It is not warm in the mornings! By noonish though, the clouds burn off and we are in for some sun and warmth. This is something that doesn't happen in Philadelphia, except for this past week!?  To be clear, our June gloom has been all day long. We've had cool, under 75°F, currently 62°F, all week and rain. I think Tuesday it rained all day long. A good soaking. So I'm not complaining. It just such a change from the weekend when it was quite toasty (at least 95°F and Humid - yes, with a capital H).  And I can not remember it ever being this cool, this long, after May, until well into the fall.
But my garden is very pleased.
The roses at the front have bloomed and held on for a while. 

 

While not quite as abundant as last year, I think I pruned a bit too vigorously, they are still quite beautiful. Miss Mary announced to me the other day that my roses "went viral" when she saw four people stopping to photograph them. :) Well, I'm glad other people enjoy them too. 

 

The nice weather has brought forth quite a few rogue plants after the peonies (see last post). This is an entire row of cherry tomatoes from last year. This little bush was so abundant last year, I couldn't possibly get to all the tomatoes. These already have flowers on them so I'm going to let them grow!

I also think there are a few critters around helping "spread" the seeds (as in they poop them out in other places in my yard).  

Next to the wooden table is a tall leafy thing. That is a sunflower I did not plant. There are two smaller ones next to it. Those are seeds squirrels dropped when they were running along the electrical lines - at the top of the photo. And even though I realized last year that I am allergic to sunflowers, I'm going to leave them. There are a few others that appeared near the ones I planted by the porch. I'm going to let them grow. I started a lot of teddy bear sunflowers and planted them. I hope to be able to cut them for inside. They didn't seem to bother me so much because the pollen didn't fall all over the place.  

I also noticed this evening --- the first garlic scape! Hot diggity!

 

Garlic Scape Pesto, comin' soon! oh yummy! 

The garlic patch has been over run by Chinese lantern plants. I do hope that won't bother them. I need to move the lantern patch to the back of the garden because it is quite prolific and interferes with all of my sunny garden space. But for this year at least, they are allowed to stay put. 

 

Last year I posted a few pictures of "where's Jacques". Can you find him in this image?    Well, he's right here, under the bench. The perfect spot. 

 That dinky tomato plant in the purple pot has also flourished.

 No fruit yet, but I'm not too worried.

I have not posted a recipe in a while and this one was so yummy and quick I thought I'd share. My wonderful farm share yielded Swiss chard, green garlic, lots of lettuce, green onions and strawberries. Since it was so warm last week we got a bonus week of our fruit share and I got four pints of strawberries! They were so ripe and delicious. Anyway... I'm not a fan of the Swiss Chard. To me, it tastes like dirt. There was nothing enticing left in the swap box by the end of the day, so I thought ok, challenge accepted: find a good recipe for this! And it's not too bad in this one. Maybe it's the bacon...

 

I found this recipe on epicurious.com for a Chard and Salami Frittata. And yes, I did say bacon, so lemme 'splain...

I didn't have salami. I did have bacon and I thought it would be delicious with either - or even an italian sausage or ??? I was just thrilled to have a recipe that was quick and sounded yummy in spite of the Swiss Chard dirt flavor.

As a bonus, since the recipe called for garlic, I thought I'd use my "green garlic" from my share. These are garlics that have not yet formed teeth. Its just a single bulb. Still garlic flavor, but milder. Plus you can use the entire stem - not the leaves but the stem for sure.  Yummy yum yum.

I substituted three strips of already fried bacon for the salami, and the green garlic for the regular garlic but otherwise followed the recipe.

 I may have cooked it too long because it was a little dry. 

 But with a little non-fat plain yogurt it was very yummy. 

 This is definitely something to make again - maybe with kale, or mustard greens or spinach, or whatever. Very easy.

And how's my nephew? oh he's fine. He spent some time with Grandpa last week.

 But it doesn't seem like he is quite sure about being with people other than mommy. 

He will be four weeks old tomorrow!

And since I couldn't figure out where to put this in the narrative, but really wanted to, here's a bonus:

 

Jacques-in-a-box