The payoff for chasing bunnies and pulling weeds

By JournalTrib.com Staff | on June 06, 2023

By Steve Andrist

Depending on the time of day and time of the year, my friend Mike Jacobs always has a hot cup of coffee, a cold beer or a nice glass of wine ready and waiting whenever we visit kids and grandkids in Grand Forks and need a break for some Boomer time.

Friday afternoon last week it was sunny and nearing 90 when I stopped over, so there's little mystery as to the day's beverage of choice.

It was probably predictable, too, with the heat arriving prematurely after the remnants of winter overstayed their welcome just a month or so earlier, that our conversation would eventually turn to gardens.

I’m a chomp-at-the-bit type of gardener. Once the snow has melted and a few beautiful spring days have raised expectations, I’m ready to get seed in the ground. More than once I’ve lived to regret mid-May planting. Sometimes even late May.

Mike takes his gardening wisdom from the lore of former North Dakota Gov. Art Link, who stood by the maxim that you can start planting your garden June 1, but not a day earlier.

This year, thanks to the winter that kept on giving long after anyone was willing to receive, I nearly met the gentleman governor's schedule. Most of our vegetables went into the ground May 25 and 26.

In my heart of hearts I knew I could well be pushing it yet again, but I couldn't resist. And this year Mother Nature made me look more genius than fool.

Delicate tomato and pepper plants survived a couple of serious wind storms and thrived on the timely rains that came with them. They were quickly ready for the protection and support of wire cages.

Greens – lettuce, spinach and collards — poked green shoots through the soil less than a week after they were planted. Surprisingly, so did peas, beans, beets and kohlrabi. Only carrots took their sweet time, as they always do, before tiny hairs of green started stretching for sun.

This year's entry in our "let's try something new and different" space, fennel, was a bit slower to break through, but the seed package had forewarned that would be the case, noting that it typically takes 10-14 days for germination.

Fennel is well known for its mild anise flavor. So it's attractive to those of us who have a thing for black licorice.

Our first experience with fennel was two years ago when we picked up a couple plants at a farmer's market. A late search last year for seed or starter plants was unsuccessful, so we started the search earlier this year and found both seed and plants.

Fennel is actually in the carrot family, but it would be difficult to tell if not for the fronds that form at the top of the plant similar.

There are three primary parts to fennel – the fronds, the celery-like stalks and the bulb, which pokes part ways out of the ground like a white beet. All three parts of the plant are edible. The bulb can be eaten raw, where it offers its strongest anise flavor. For a sweeter and milder flavor, it also can be roasted.

The stalks can be used much like celery, sauteed with onions and other veggies for dishes or soup stock. Many cooks also throw the stalks in the steamer or boiling liquid during a shrimp or crab boil.

The fronds can be used as an herb, to provide the light licorice flavor, or in salads, as garnishes or as an ingredient in pesto.

Fennel seed is a common herb, though it comes from a different plant that's related to the one that produces bulbs, stalks and fronds.

At this point our success in growing fennel is still uncertain. But if it works, tune in next fall for some recipe ideas. By then we’ll be eating our fill of BLTs, creamed green beans on toast, borscht and even egg plant parmesan. Those are among the many reasons that gardening is worth chasing bunnies and pulling weeds.

Crying wolf

Is there anyone who seriously thought our government would not reach a debt ceiling deal, thereby averting our first-ever default?

The House and Senate have now both passed the bill that suspends the country's $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, and President Biden has signed it into law. This after weeks of bluster in which Democrats and Republicans in Washington took indignant turns posturing that "the other side" would feel the wrath of voters who would blame "the other side" if there wasn't significant compromise on budget and spending.

Sorry, but we have heard these boys and girls cry wolf so many times that most of us just turn the page or the channel any time anyone from either side forecasts the Armageddon that surely will come.

Frankly, this congressional bluster is precisely the reason our national discourse has plunged into the depths of oppositional incivility.

Citizens are just so sick and tired of the Congress and the administration not doing simple tasks like passing a budget on time. They see their government as dysfunctional and feel powerless to do anything about it. When people find themselves so frustrated with no one to help them out of it they become desperate and resort to fear, anger and perhaps even violence.

Congress has fueled this desperation for so long that the resulting hate and anger can be no surprise.

The only way out of it is for Congress and the administration to do their jobs.

You must be logged in to post a comment.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.