It’s that time of year when morning becomes less relevant, where there is no desire to linger over coffee and pre-market stock moves. The days are more likely to be out the door asap. A pair of shorts, next to nothing, slip on shoes, a collared t-shirt with holes, maybe propolis stains on the belly, maybe jelly.

I fall in love with certain times of the year. I’m a simpleton when the sun shines and the only thing between me and the outdoors is a screen and not for long. Wait, is simpleton a bad word? I have to look that up. Either way, I can be one – for the complexity of Nature, awe of the Cosmos – the flowers too! –, for the stars that creep unrepentantly through the night-light pollution, the sun, a blade of grass. OMG, there are so many directions to go. I can’t wait to see the bees. Did that queen cell hatch? What color pollen is the recovered swarm colony bringing in? And the beans, the green beans, it seems I can actually see them grow after a good watering, a rain. Another dead ash tree fell across the lane. When am I going to repair the dock? A couple dead ash hit it during that storm in March. All the ash died last year – all that were remaining. I have to keep up with the trees, the dead ones, no time for the living.

We are not done planting, yet the harvest has begun. Our hardneck garlic has thrown up their scapes and we took them off the homefield crop yesterday and Nancy began making garlic scape pesto, available soon. (See photo). There are two basic types of garlic: hardneck and solfneck. Hardneck garlic tends to grow better in our harsh winters and the difference between the two varieties is that the hardneck will send up a scape, or a separate stem, right from the middle of the plant to produce genetically identical baby garlic bulbs called bulbils. It is advisable to cut this scape off early to increase the amount of energy going to the mother bulb down below the ground. Rather than throwing the cut scapes onto the ground, or compost pile, they are edible and can be grilled, sautéed, pickled, or turned into a hot and spicy pesto. My cellar Coke machine is suddenly full of bags of scapes. Production has begun. I have a new Ball canner coming Tuesday to pickle some of those suckers.

The garlic scape pesto is simple enough to make, just takes time. After the scapes are washed and dried and sorted for perfection, they are chopped and then blended with olive oil, pine nuts, parmesan cheese, dash of salt and pepper. Great on spaghetti, or on grilled meats as a salve. Just add food!

The scapes are the first real sign of summer for the farm and when I look up from planting, the hayfields are in prime condition for mowing. People in our area are not that familiar with garlic scapes, but we have them available for anyone who like to try their hand at them. It can be as simple as rolling in olive oil and salt and throwing them on the grill next to the burgers, or steaks, or soybean mash, your choice.

Some aficionados “pull” the scapes rather than cut them. By “pull”, I mean they grab the stem and pull straight up until the scape “pops” out of the plant from down inside the tubular shield. I have never had time for that and just cut them with my red-handled harvest knife close as I can get to the top leaves on the stem. They are full of spicy juice which bleads onto your hands. We toss them into a plastic tray, or harvest basket, and then bag them into white plastic bags for refrigeration until they can be processed.

Hoping Wednesday we can get down to the black dirt garlic and harvest those scapes, and, while there, weed the Adirondack blue potatoes, maybe harvest some onion scallions.

It is an exciting time of year, and I see the sun is coming out right on schedule, which means I am going to load my truck with honey supers and put some more boxes on the hives for the bees to fill with our superior, organic, woodland and meadow honey. The red dogwood is coming into bloom as we speak.

See you at the stand.