Garden eats and a bonus CSA basket

If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you’ll know that I’ve identified Asian Tiger mosquitoes in my yard. After three sessions outside I was been bitten over thirty times. However, for the last two outings, I made sure to wear closed shoes, jeans and a hooded rain jacket — despite the hot and humid weather. Those pesky buggers tried in vain to bite me through clothes but I won. Today I plan on taking a tour of my back yard to check for any standing water in order to reduce their breeding grounds.

Yesterday I dared to venture out to check out my raised bed and noticed the basil could do with some pinching. While I was out there I must have been swarmed by at least 20 skeeters, and they were very agressive. I think they “rest” on the underside of the garden foliage and I disturbed them. So imagine me carelessly picking basil while trying to keep all of those mosquitoes away from my exposed face and hands. Before rushing back inside I also managed to grab two ripe strawberries and some fallen ground cherries.

Despite what I had to go through to get this harvest, it was worth it. The strawberries were so good and flavourful, unlike the ones from the grocery stores, and I actually got away with 85 grams of basil — a lot if you consider the price of those small plastic packages that cost $4 each.

This year marks our 4th year with the CSA and they gave us the usual bonus basket. It always includes a 4″ basil plant, which is really nice. We also got good-sized bunches of asparagus and rhubarb, a head of frizzy lettuce and a small bag of sunchokes.

So for dinner, I made basil-cashew pesto with fried tofu and a salad on the side. Yum!

It may sound strange that we subscribe to a CSA basket while having a garden but we decided to hedge our bets this year. You know, just in case the garden doesn’t work out. If it goes super well, and we get the second raised bed in, we may just decide to drop the basket completely. Only time will tell.