Cabbages and Clue Hunts!

 "Every house has a small garden before it, with a circular path, a sun-dial, and twenty-four cabbages."  from The Devil in the Belfry by Edgar Allan Poe.

  The above passage from Edgar Allan Poe's tale has stuck with me since this past October when we had the Second Annual Clue Hunt on the Bayou.  I had just put in a bunch more than twenty-four cabbages (one hundred and thirty-two, to be exact) and that line had to make me giggle.  Not so much the line but rather that the clues led the "detectives" to the middle of my garden where the sundial sat.  The cabbages were the easiest "props" of the entire clue hunt!  It, also, tickled me that most every group of detectives asked if the plants were actually cabbages.  I answered honestly when I told them "Yes!"

  Now months later, those very same cabbages are becoming tasty additions to our meals. Our lunch included a head today! I will begrudgingly eat cabbages from the grocery store but always delight when I can pick my own.  There is such an extreme difference in taste! While the ones from the grocer are bland (almost tasteless) or are strong and sometimes smelly, homegrown cabbages are sweet, full of flavor and smell delightful.  Also, while most folks will "doctor up" cabbages when cooking them, these need nothing but a sprinkling of salt and a bit of butter.  There is no need to add salt-pork, bacon or any other junk.  These cabbages stand on their own flavor!

  I am thinking that cabbages are probably the easiest to grow of all crops.  I plant mine in late fall and let them do their thing over winter. (Our winters are usually mild but I do have to cover them occasionally.) The plants are fed with natural fertilizers and have never felt the spray of any chemicals upon them.  The cold weather is the greatest of insecticides!  I can eat these with a clear conscience!  Now, if I can just figure out what to do with the other one hundred and thirty-one cabbages! (Not really, I know exactly what to do with them!  Eat them!