The Urgency of Summer
Everything everywhere all at once
We are in Frenzy Time. Long days that can see several changes of weather. Days where you find yourself sleepy after a long day’s work, only to nap, wake, and it’s still that same day. So you do more.
It’s when you see All the Friends, do All the Things, drink and party and cook and smile and fall down into your bed sometime after 11 p.m. or later, only to be awakened by the robins outside your window at 4:45 a.m. And then you do it again.
This is my second Minnesota summer, and I am more accustomed to this mania than I was when I wrote about it last year, where I was desperately trying to regulate my nervous system amidst the maelstrom. This year, what I am noticing is that this urgency extends to the plants around us, too.
The first thing I noticed was that the patch of lambsquarters I let grow in my garden bed went from happily putting out fat, juicy leaves to putting out skinny leaves and tons of seeds in like a week. I blinked, and poof! now these plants are truly weeds because the effort to get good greens from them just tripled.
Then I noticed my Hidatsa squash doing something fascinating, something I’d never seen before in 30-plus years of growing squash: All its initial flowers were female! Each with a squashlet at its base. But with no male flowers, and then only a few, most turned yellow and fell off, unpollinated.
Most squash follow the sperm-and-egg model: Lots of male flowers first, and once there are a bunch of them around, then the female flowers show up. Easy-peasy pollination then. This Hidatsa egg-first adaptation is likely because these squashes are from North Dakota, where summer is short and you had better set a winter squash quick or you’ll run out of time.
Indeed, that’s why I am growing this variety; my Sonoran squash last year failed to fully ripen, even by Halloween. I suspect I’ll have a half-dozen Hidatsas by Labor Day.
Similarly, the heirloom tomatoes I am growing have already set fruit, which shocked me when I saw them this morning. Why? Well, in Sacramento, where I gardened for 20 years, high summer was simply too hot for tomatoes to set. So the plant would grow, flower, then those flowers would drop off when temperatures would top 105 on the regular. Only after Labor Day did the tomato onslaught begin.
I have dozens and dozens of ripening tomatoes right now, and I might even get to eat a few before I have to head back to Sacramento for book tour soon. My friends who will water for me while I’m gone will reap the rewards.
My red currants are ripe, too. I had expected them at the end of July, not the end of June. The black currants should be ripe by Independence Day. Juneberries in my front yard will probably be Julyberries, but they’re close, too.
And the speed at which my front yard pocket prairie has grown into a lush, rabbit-concealing jungle astonished me. My central patch of jerusalem artichokes is almost as tall as I am already, and they haven’t even thought about flowering yet. Protecting my coneflowers from the murderous bunnies has paid off with a dozen or more that are three feet tall, all set to flower any day now.
That urgency extends into my kitchen.
I’ve already pickled fiddleheads, made ramp puree, canned fish, and frozen packets of nettles for the winter. This past weekend, I pickled the red currants — they are astonishingly good as garnish for meat and fish — dried herbs, and put up another couple pounds of lambsquarters for the winter.
As northern cooks, we must think about the long, dark cold months while we’re still in the long days of summer. I love that, the curing, salting, drying, pickling, canning. I’ll be hard at it clear to November — when I get the chance.
In the forest, the undergrowth is thick. Its breath humid and sultry, sweaty even when the fields feel dry. Walking through it even in my lightest pants feels like wearing gym leggings on a muggy, 80-degree day: I crave ice cream when I emerge from the bush.
Mosquitos have just begun to swarm, a true sign of the summer frenzy. But that also means the ticks are waning, so it’s kind of a wash. Chanterelles are just starting, a few here and there. I’ve found a couple beautiful king boletes… that were hollowed out by the humidity-loving larvae that can get to them within hours in summertime.
Soon I’ll travel west to fish with my friend Tyler near Stanley, North Dakota. I’ll get up with the dawn, drive eight hours there, jump in a boat, hopefully catch walleyes until it gets dark around 11 p.m., drink some bourbon, shoot the shit with the boys, sleep a minute, then get up and do it again on Independence Day. I’ll drive home, then prep for the first big leg of my book tour.
Long days. Full days. Soak them in. Connect with loved ones. Do the things that lift you up, make you happy, lighter, freer. Enjoy the frenzy. Because winter is coming.
My Juneberries have always been Julyberries here. And the Mayflies are often Juneflies. I've missed more mushrooms than I can count to worms and never once thought about the short-season frenzy you've described. It makes sense. Cheers from Brainerd.
Moving from one climate niche to another is a real eyeopener, Hank. You from No-Cal to MN. Me from MA to So-Cal. Those first few years are disorienting and also exciting!