Consider the lilies

"Consider the lilies, how they grow…" Luke 12:27

   I consider the lilies a lot in relation to all my other ill-fated gardening attempts.
When we were first married, my husband hired a guy to Roto-till a garden for me. Months later, when my neighbors were giving away beefsteak tomatoes and foot long zucchinis, all I managed to harvest were three pencil-thin carrots.
I tried herbs in the garden, herbs on the deck and herbs on the windowsill. It was a no grow. 
   Then when we moved to this house 14 years ago, my neighbor Marge offered me some daylilies. 
   "You can't kill them," she said.
   "Watch me," I thought.
   Marge proved to be right. I now have more daylilies than she does. In fact, I can't even get rid of any. If I dig them up, they come back double.
   It's been nice, of course, having something of color besides red clay in my yard, but gardening would be much more satisfying if I could get out there and pick something to eat. Even the deer that attack my monkey grass (also known as lilyturf, which may explain "how they grow") don't bother with my daylilies. 
   But flowers do feed the soul and last May Day, my friend Bev, who is Hawaiian, hosted a luncheon in her home. She said in Hawaii, May Day is called Lei Day and everyone wears flowers. And at Bev's house, we even ate them. Dessert was a tiny flowerpot filled with ice cream and crushed Oreos , then topped with edible flowers -pansies, marigolds, snap dragons-from the farmer's market.
   OK, that was cute, but who besides a Hawaiian would do something like that?
   Then last weekend we attended a wedding in Charleston. As we were waiting for dinner to be served, I noticed the junior bridesmaids, Allison Kennemore and Michelle Dumoulin nibbling on their bouquets.
   Responding to my quizzical look, Allison said, "It's all right, Mrs. Larson, they're all herbs, completely edible."
   "Even the flowers?" I asked.
   "Sure," said Michelle, "want a bite?"
   By now I wondered, could I convert my daylilies into some culinary delight? When I returned home, I typed "daylily recipes" into my browser and found hundreds of Web sites.
   There's daylily soup, daylily salad, daylily pickles and daylily sausage tarts. The Chinese, according to one site, dined on daylilies centuries before the development of writing. 
   That afternoon, I picked some fresh lilies and made daylily cheesecake, which I stuffed into fresh blossoms for dessert. I was so proud of myself, I even took some to Bev.
   Now when friends give me their homegrown tomatoes, peppers and zucchinis, I can respond in kind with my home grown daylilies. And I can be even more generous than that. 
   Anyone out there standing on the street with a "will work for food" sign can just come on over. I'm running an all you can eat special!

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