Gardenwars: Week 7

It’s the penultimate week of Gardenwars! Our brave gardeners continue to harvest their bounty despite an oppressive heat wave.

July 23, 2013; 7:56 AM • by Ross Catrow

The penultimate week of Gardenwars! An oppressive heat wave shrivels gardens across RVA, yet nothing will shrivel this competition…? I don’t know. Anyway, good work in this heat, gardeners!

As always, remember our tangible-prize sponsors, Plow & Hearth)! And congratulations to last week’s winner: John Sarvay! Only one vote separated first and second place at the completely arbitrary time I decided to cut off voting.

Last week’s results

1. Lesley Bruno
2. John Sarvay
3. Scott Pharr
4. Erik Bonkovsky

Competition leaderboard

This week we’ve included the results of our super-secret (also arbitrary) scoring algorithm. Note: a lower score is better, like golf.

1. Lesley Bruno (12)
2. Erik Bonkovsky (14)
3. John Sarvay (15)
4. Scott Pharr (16)

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Lesley Bruno

James’s famous tomato-basil salad, seasoned with plenty of garlic and served at room temperature with crusty bread. This salad is basically why I married him.

Sunday nights are pasta nights. I’m not even sure what else one would eat on a Sunday.

The simple Mojito, with fresh mint. The rest of our herbs have succumbed to the weather, but the mint endures.

John Sarvay

When life gives you cucumbers, go spa! This summer, Nikole’s been drinking vast quantities of water infused with cucumbers and mint from our garden (with a splash of lemons from otherwhere).

The mighty Hanover Melon was first cultivated in the late 1800s. We bought our seedlings from Amy Hicks of Amy’s (So Awesome) Organics early this spring, and mistook our first fruit for a watermelon. Think honeydew melon meets cantaloupe out by the haystacks for a romp.

A neighbor calls this “Sex on Kale”. We call it kale with a robust serving of garlic. Raw, chopped kale drenched in a garlic-tahini dressing.

Scott Pharr

Standing over eight feet tall, we FINALLY got a sunflower. I literally had to stand on a ladder to take this pic.

ARGH! I got me a new pirate hat from the garden!

And then mom turned it into dinner.

Erik Bonkovsky

The Black-eyed Susans have exploded with blooms brightening our garden path.

This week we harvested the first of our potatoes, which will be perfect roasted with fresh rosemary and. . .

…Onions, here hanging outside to dry out before storage.

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Vote now!

July 23, 2013 7:56 AM 0