On Summer Salads, Refrigerator Pickles, and What Eating Seasonally Really Means in the South

No. 13 | Summer Gardening in Greenville, SC

Cicada song. Lightning bugs. Box fans. Wind chimes. Warm breezes. Sweet tomatoes. Sprinkler games. Barefoot in the grass. Dirt under my nails.

It’s summer.

Both of my kids are staying home with me (while I work from home!) for the summer for the first time, and we are having a blast. Some days they drive me wild, but mostly, we’re just soaking up all the whimsy.

You never know what the morning hour before I start work will bring in summer: Building a baby frog playground at the base of a tree. Mixing up a batch of GIANT bubble liquid and running through the grass with a bubble wand. Temporary tattoos. Catching lizards and lightning bugs.

This is the time of year when I can’t help myself: I’m checking on my kitchen garden every few hours. A good excuse to get up from the computer for a bit and put my fingers in the soil.

I’ve been making a salad for lunch every day out of whatever I found that morning. Since lettuce doesn’t grow that well through the hot Carolina summer, I’ve been getting creative. Anything can be a salad. It’s looked like:

• baby arugula, cucumber, tomatoes, mint, radish pods, nasturtiums +
  feta, homemade croutons, lime juice, olive oil and flaky sea salt

• cucumber, carrots, lemon basil, green onion, cutting celery +
  pepitas, grapes, goat cheese, lemon juice, olive oil and flaky sea salt

• baby arugula, Italian basil, tomatoes, cucumbers +
  parmesan, white wine vinegar, olive oil, flaky sea salt and pepper

The figs should be in soon, some strawberries are still producing, peppers are ramping up… the possibilities are endless.

This has been a really fun exercise because I crave fresh things in the summer, and sweet lettuces can’t really be the base of it for me.

I’ve fallen in love with the serendipity of eating clean and fresh things by having a salad bar right outside my door.

P.S. ANOTHER thing I love about the summer garden is thinking of ways to use what I'm growing now later on. I started a notebook two years ago where I only allowed myself to add things I preserved in simple ways and then actually used up. There's no point in freezing loads of kale if you never reach for it again—that's a lesson well-learned from personal experience.

I'm working on a new resource to help you think more creatively about "preserving" in super-simple ways that are approachable and easy to do from memory and feel. More to come!

Summer 2025

What I’m Reading & Listening To

The Saltwater Table: Recipes from the Coastal South
Whitney Otawka

This is a cookbook, not a gardening book, yes. But it’s unique in the way it’s organized by seasons that resonate so deeply with me as a South Carolinian:
Oyster Season, Vegetable Season, Shrimp Season, Heat Season, and Smoke & Cedar Season.

Eating seasonally here is different. We don’t just have 4 equally distributed seasons. Vegetable cool season is super short, and really begins in winter not spring. “Heat” season is extra long, but then, so is our “smoke and cedar” season, as we can cook outside pretty much fall through winter with some rare exceptions.

Whitney’s recipes are garden-to-table and feel authentic to the south while also having a lot of creativity and uniqueness inspired by other regions where she has lived. I’m loving it.

Deer Resistant Design: Fence-Free Gardens That Thrive Despite the Deer
Karen Chapman

For whatever reason, in our third year in this house the deer have finally started doing some damage—mostly to ornamentals like hydrangeas but also to the blackberry patch. They’ve left my raised beds alone so far, and I think that has to do with the way it’s situated on the slope, the rocks, and the spiky and fuzzy plants I planted around the whole space.

I’m trying to learn from what’s working so I can incorporate more strategies to protect the edibles on the rest of our property without putting in a fence.

---

What I’m Growing

A list of what is actively growing in my kitchen garden right now.

• Arugula: I’m growing in the shade under the tomatoes. It’s working well!

• Blueberries

• Blackberries

• Carrots

• Cucumbers

• Figs

• Herbs: Rosemary, thyme, chives, dill, green onion, lemongrass, oregano, peppermint, spearmint and sage

• Nasturtiums: I’m listing them even though they are flowers, because I’ve actually been eating them this year

• Peppers: Jimmy Nardello, shishito, and cayenne.

• Radish pods: the radishes have bolted but I’m still eating the pods

• Strawberries

• Squash: Butternut and Delicata, with Blue Hubbard as a trap crop

• Tomatoes: My heirloom cherry type I’ve been saving forever, originally called “Blue Berries,” and Amish Paste Romas

• Meyer lemon

---

Resources

Plants Map - Paper Routes - Good Printed Things

A map I wrote featuring great places to buy plants locally here in Upstate, South Carolina. Illustrated by Charis JB.

The Uncomplicated Gardener - Good Printed Things

My zine sharing six steps I’ve learned over time that brought me success and joy growing and tending plants without overcomplicating things. Illustrated by Jennifer Bilton.

---

Recipe: Refrigerator Pickles

I started making these last year and they were a hit. Everyone who tasted them asked me for the recipe. I’ve been sharing it via text constantly this summer, so I thought I’d share it with you, too.

Basic Ratio to scale up or down

• 1 cup water

• 1 cup white wine vinegar

• 1 T kosher salt

Dissolve the salt in the vinegar/water solution. (I haven’t found any need to heat it to accomplish that.) Then, add whatever flavors you want to your jars. The combo we loved last summer was this. All of the numbers are per jar.

• 2-3 thyme sprigs

• 10-15 black peppercorns

• 10-15 coriander seeds

• 1-2 cloves of garlic, sliced

We didn’t have dill growing last year, but we do this year so we’ll try that this go-round. Sometimes I added red pepper flakes to make spicy ones for TJ.

Let them soak at least 4 hours to get the flavors to start melding together, but 24 hours is better!

My top tip is to pick a vinegar you really like. A lot of the recipes online just say “white vinegar” or “cider vinegar.” If you don’t like the vinegar, you probably won’t like the pickles. Enjoy!

I couldn’t tell you how long they are “good,” because ours never lasted longer than a few days: I had to keep an eye on Siena, as she would take a jar to her playroom with her and finish the whole thing off in one sitting :)