One of my favorite things to do is eat things from the garden while I’m working. I’ve been eating fave from my fave harvest for weeks now, a few pods at a time.
I also have great edible pod peas to snack on at the moment. Fun for me, and it’s a separate activity from the produce I harvest for family consumption.
Good-neighbor PR
My garden is quite visible from the street, and there are a bunch of neighbors who regularly cheer me on when I’m working.
In return I like to give some of the neighbors bags of fruit or produce when we have an abundance.
It’s my good neighbor public relations campaign. Last year I gave so many fave away that when it came time to give one particular neighbor some fave, I didn’t have any left, so I went down to the market, bought a few euros worth, and gave them to them, telling them they were from my garden. A little white lie that made everybody happy.
This year when I told my wife that I again planned to give part of our fave harvest to some of the neighbors, she objected. We have both been hit a bit by the recession this year, and she urged me to be more financially conservative.
Fave Harvest Tradition Success
The good news is that the fave harvest on May 1, the traditional day, went off well, and I collected several bags full of nice big beans. I had been worried that the season was so late that we might miss May 1. As usual, I separated the beans, putting the best beans aside for my mother in law, the next best grade for out own use.
Funny how what had been a treasured crop, worried about all winter long, has now become something I’m anxious to get rid of.
And Moving On to a New Crop …
I want to plant new crops in the terraces where the fave are growing.
My plan is to muster patience for another week, harvest all the beans that are ready, and trash the rest so I can prepare the beds for replanting.
I’ve got Roma tomatoes and lemon cucumbers ready to plant there, so the fave are in the way now.
Having fave to eat on May 1 is the big deal, and with the rest we’ll probably just shell them all and freeze them, to be used in soups in the fall.
All in all it was a good year for fave, but I’ll probably plant less next year. In the end, I just gave one bag of fave to the neighbors this year, and my gesture of economy was the fact that this year, I didn’t buy any of them.
