A year ago we were in Italy. Now that it's almost summer I've been dreaming again of Italy. So last night we made a homemade pizza with fresh ricotta and arugula from my garden. Wow.
I had never had fresh ricotta before but now I think I'm spoiled for ricotta forever. Really, if you can find it it's worth every penny. We finally made it to the foodie mecca of
Jungle Jim's in Cincinnati and now our fridge is stocked with all sorts of fabulous finds and rare delicacies. Too bad I'll just be eating ricotta at every meal...
And the garden?
I finally have my own vegetable garden in my backyard. We built the beds in April and already are eating spinach, lettuce, arugula, and swiss chard. Also planted in the beds are leeks, onion, shallots, snow peas, beets, eggplant, tomatoes, carrots, basil, and cilantro. In containers I'm growing potatoes and I've planted pumpkin seeds in a few spots to see if anything happens. Perhaps I'll go sow some pole beans this afternoon.
The fencing? Granville has a serious deer problem. They eat all the hostas, of course, the daylily buds, the hydrangeas, viburnum, tulips, hollyhocks, sedum, phlox. They even eat things that are supposed to be unappealing to deer: coneflowers, boxwood, coral bells, alliums, etc. They eat the plants growing right next to the houses, they walk down the middle of the streets in full daylight. They do everything except walk in the house and open the fridge. So, the veggie garden needs a high fence. I've reinforced it at the bottom to keep out marauding ground hogs. So far no invaders but I wonder if the raccoons will find it when it's tomato season.
