Beets

I have good friend named Clyde who is the most extraordinary gardener I have ever known. He keeps me in beets. Sunday evening, we went to his place and picked beets and wound up with three 5 gallon buckets of beets – each beet is about the size of an apple. His garden is an awesome sight: potatoes, tomatoes, beets, (we barely made a dent in his crop), corn, peppers, garlic, onions and grapes to name just a few of the things he grows. And do you know why he grows all this?
To give it away.
He has a heart the size of the Louisiana Purchase and he loves to grow things, so he grows this magnificent garden and gives 99 % of it away. His wife likes to keep some of the potatoes.
He has passed this gift for growing things along to his daughter, Kelli (who happens to be a cowgirl friend of mine) and now they trade bedding plants and growing secrets, so between the two of them, I think they might be able to keep the entire Midwestern USA in fresh produce throughout the growing season.
Meanwhile, I will be spending every spare minute of the next few days processing beets. We love pickled beets and I found a recipe for beet relish that I’m going to try.
Joani is going out of town from now until Sunday and her cucumbers have just started to bear, so I will have cukes to pick & pickle for a few days. I appreciate that a lot, because I don’t have room for cucumbers in my little space and I am completely out of my 14 day sweet pickles.
Not only that, but it’s sweet corn season and there is a truck on every other corner selling fresh corn – the good kind that has both white & gold kernels.
Life is good.