I've experimented a bit in with flowers but in my choice of vegetables I've been quite conservative. My garden has always relied upon the standards: black-seeded Simpson lettuce, Detroit red beets, Danvers carrots, Waltham 29 broccoli. But now I've decided to take a walk on the wild side In today's mail came my brand-new heirloom and rare seed catalog. (Is there anything that more brightens a cold December morn than the colorful garden catalog that arrives in the mailbox at winter solstice?) Consider the lowly carrot, for example. Here are some of the possible choices for next year's adventure garden: the 12" long red-orange St. Valery, dating from the 19th century; Lunar Whites -- "white carrots were grown during the Middle Ages but now rare"; Cosmic Purple -- a dark variety, loaded with lycopene; Parisienne -- "small round carrots popular in France"; Chantenay Red Core -- "a large stump-rooted carrot with a deep red-orange center" dating from 1929; the "mild and sweet" Shin Kuroda, a Japanese variety. And twenty other equally entrancing varieties. How to choose? I have room for twenty feet of carrots. Just enough for one variety, or possibly, if I push it, two.
What about tomatoes, the king of all summer vegetables, but an uncontrollable plant that turns itself into a jungle come August. Nine pages of varieties -- greens, yellows, pinks, reds, purples in various sizes from cherry to plum to 2-pounders; some of them mottled, others striped, round, cylindrical, and every one of them claiming to offer old-fashioned sweet/acid tomato taste. How many can I possibly plant? However few, I know I'll be imploring my friends take some, please, with you when you leave. Old Vermont saying: "always keep your car locked in August, otherwise someone will open your door and throw in a bunch of zucchinis." Or tomatoes.Which brings me to the nine pages of exciting squash, including the Hopi Cushaw and the Pink Banana and the... well, you can see my dilemma.
You may not know this but basketball coaches have a phrase for each of the dunk moves you describe. For reasons I cannot fathom, the first is usually called the "aerial hen lump." Since the days of Nat Holman and Clair Bee, the second move has been called the "manual heel rip." The third move - discouraged by coaches because of its physical risk - is called the "hernial leap 'um."
Posted by: Axel Sprengtporten | December 23, 2008 at 06:42 AM