Stone Soup Row

My favorite story-book version of stone soup.

Each Wednesday at Eli's school is "soup day."  Each family contributes one vegetable to the pot, and a "stone soup" is made.  When I pick Eli up from school on Wednesdays he carries with him a rich aroma of garlic and a potpourri of melded vegetables that is just delicious.

At some point in the summer, when the vegetables were ripening and ready, and Eli had been away from school for a while, he had the idea to make a vegetable soup from the garden, like he does during the school year.  He wanted to pick some of everything and include them in the soup.  "And ONLY from the garden," he insisted.  So we did.  We picked handfuls of fresh basil, carrots, a few different summer squash, tomatoes, thyme, beets, and chard.  I appreciated Eli's enthusiasm for the project very much.  But I have to admit. . .  I was skeptical.  How would this taste?  No broth?  No seasonings?  Just a random assortment of vegetables?

It turns out, it was one of the best soups we had all summer.  (Our family has a soup day on Sundays.)  It was so fresh.  The summer squash and basil just melted in your mouth.  It needed no extra flavors.  And even I (who really dislikes beets) liked the beets, especially the golden ones, in the soup.

Today, though it is far from the ripe days of summer, I made a summer vegetable soup.  It was a cold but sunny day, and maybe part of me was remembering that wonderful day from the garden:  Eli's enthusiasm at harvesting a whole meal from the garden; my own at what a wonderful soup we all ate together.  And really, what more payoff can there be from growing a garden than this?  Joy in the harvesting and eating?  Appreciation for the flavors of the foods from our 5-year-old?

While I was chopping and reminiscing the summer soup we had, I thought of my dilemma of rows (seeTo Row or Not to Row http://getdiggy.blogspot.com/2012/01/to-row-or-not-to-row.html).  And then, it hit me.  Maybe one of my rows can be the summer soup row?  I can grow a little of everything:  basil, squash, tomato, beets and turnips, carrots, some chard.  Anything that would be good in our soup.  I like the idea.  I have grown many themed gardens before:  pizza and salsa gardens to name a few.  But a stone soup row would give credence to the many lessons Eli (and the garden) have taught me:  nature needs no embellishment; there is abundance in little; it feels really good to eat everything from the small patch we have planted.  All things to remember as I ponder my spring seeds.