Stray Not, Thy Wandering Heart: This Year’s Seed Order

Last year, I purchased some yellow wax pole bean seeds and other vegetable seeds from another catalog. I felt somewhat guilty betraying John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds, since they were the first and best source when my more serious ventures in suburban agriculture started a few years ago. Midway through last season, I asked myself, “Why did I ever stray?”

The company is based in Connecticut, a neighboring state, so I can keep my dollars somewhat local. The catalog never fails to satisfy in both its charm and information. But, more importantly, the seeds are flat-out great. Some three-year-old Scheepers seeds I used last year had better germination rates and heavier vegetable production than the new ones I purchased from the other source. Suffice it to say, save some collard greens from the 4/$1 seed stand at my grocery store, just about everything going in the ground this year will be from Scheepers.

And (drum roll please…) the new purchases are:

Winter Red Russian Kale
Purple Dragon Carrots
Lemon Cucumbers
Zucchetta Trombolina Zucchini
Purple Podded Pole Beans (a perennial favorite)
Both red and yellow “jellybean” grape tomatoes
Sungold cherry tomatoes
Lyn’s Mahogany Garnet tomatoes
Persimmon tomatoes
Australian Butter Squash (for winter storage)

I’m especially excited about the new squash. Winter squashes have done quite well in my yard in years past and (I pray I’m not jinxing it here) I hope this new variety will do just as well and pleasantly surprise with its flavor and storage potential. The Australian Butter Squash is described as a “pumpkin-shaped heirloom, prolific, tasty and versatile with a pale, buff-orange hard shell and sweet, dense orange flesh with a small seed cavity…Weighing in at 12-15 pounds, list long-keeper may be stored and used throughout the winter.”

The areas for my cool-weather crops are turned over and ready, so the following will be planted shortly: the new red kale, Tuscan Lacinato Kale (older seeds, still viable), collard greens, and various lettuces. In a few weeks, the carrots and some parsnip seeds (not yet purchased) should make their way into sweet Mother Earth.

So, with seeds about to go in the ground, I may as well start the Eco-Nomics of it all for the 2011 growing season:

Scheepers Order: $37.15
Collards, w/tax $ 0.27
Total: $37.42

I have peat pellets left over from last year, along with their reusable growing trays and some seed starting mix. My daughter and I will start our tomato seeds shortly. Most everything else will be directly sown. We’ll keep you posted.

Tomatoes are Female. Pole beans, Male.

Last summer, it was “Reflections on Tearing Lettuce.” This year, I have been musing off and on over the sex of my plants. There are male and female flowers on pumpkin vines, for example, so why not “male” and “female” plants themselves?

While not a comprehensive list of all things male, female or otherwise growing in my garden, a definitive few – the masculine and feminine, the tough and the tender, the sturdy and the dainty – make the cut as follows:

Female Plants

Tomatoes are most definitely female. With their hanging orbs perfectly cupped by a gentle hand and warmed by the sun, the fruits await a tender bite to release sweet, dribbling juices. When sliced, a gentle but skilled tongue can probe the gorgeous and glistening inner wells of the fruit for every last drop of sweet and salty goodness.

Summer squash - and the winter squash for that matter. The plants have a gently rambling form with bursting blooms and curlicue tendrils and are extremely productive. Plus the pollinating bees practically run each other over as they compete to enter the soft folds of the open, welcoming blossoms. There’s a lot of sex going on in the garden. And it’s constant in the squash bed.

Delicate fronds of Chervil and her subtle, mysterious taste.

Basil. Perhaps it is the way a good Genovese basil’s scent wafts up as you walk past, like a woman’s perfume. Perhaps it’s the lacy, ruffled edges of certain varieties that make it female. You tell me.

Rhubarb is female. My plant is a division from my grandmother. It has long, bright crimson stalks hidden beneath a canopy of large leaves. The leaves are poisonous but the stalks never fail to please and surprise. The raw taste will bite your tongue off, but its sweet and tangy flavor can be coaxed out by slow, steady, gentle cooking. And like a woman, the plant gets better and better with age.

Contrary to the knee-jerk “meat & potatoes” man’s meal image, potato plants are female. They have delicate, dangling lavender flowers that look lamentingly downward for the eyes to see, but like women, all their deepest secrets are buried beneath the fertile earth.

Male Plants

My climbing, vining, twining pole beans are male. This year, they have aggressively enveloped the three obelisks anchored in the bed and are venturing beyond, threatening to take over each other’s territory. If that’s not male, I don’t know what is. Also, this year, the bean plants are all boast and bravado: they’re puffing their chests, but not producing. By July of last year, I’d already harvested bales of beans. This year, it was slim pickings. These vines are all talk, no action. Definitely male. However, once the beans are prepared by an expert hand and transformed into a glistening tangle of oiled and herbaceous crisp-tender delight, they become female. The climbing bean exception would be Christmas limas. Once two thumbs gently ease open the pod, you reveal their hot fuschia striations of color. Those plants are definitely female from the start.

Tromboletta zucchini. Those hanging zucchinis are male, for obvious reasons. Plus, unchecked, the vigorous vines could overtake an entire backyard.

Tuscan kale is male, with its dark leaves, pebbled texture and plant heft and height.

Eggplants are male. I really gave this some thought because I just couldn’t quite decide. The leaves have a soft underside and the flowers are quite interesting. But they have a tough skin and take just sooo, sooo long to mature, if they do at all. Are they worth the wait? Some say eggplant is an acquired taste. But with the proper care and attention, eggplant can be trained and transformed in the kitchen into a variety of palatable dishes. That transformation is by a female hand, of course.

That’s not everything growing in my garden by any means. I’ve barely considered the cucumbers. Perhaps one night this week, after everyone’s in bed, I’ll sit on the patio with a glass of wine, survey my surroundings as the season winds down, and figure out the sex of my radicchio.

But for now, I think I need a cigarette.

Edible Jewels

We mined over two pounds of amethysts from the earth this weekend.

I knew the first purple potatoes were ready when, upon harvesting some squash, I noticed that a set of potato vines had withered and largely separated themselves from the roots. So out they came.

Varied in size but not in their deep purple color, the fresh potatoes nearly filled our large colander. The timing was perfect as well: it was already late on a Sunday and I needed a carbohydrate to serve with a grilled chicken dinner.

Potatoes are usually cured outdoors for a few days before consumption or storage, but these begged to be savored fresh. Like last year, with the large russets we ate freshly-dug, these purple potatoes were pillowy soft and delicately nutty in flavor. Once gently cleaned, they glistened and glinted like deeply colored gemstones.

All they needed was 15 minutes of steaming, a pat of Plugra butter and a finishing crunch of sea salt.

The curing hardens the skins, which protects and preserves these jewels during winter storage. I’ll do so with the rest of our harvest. I found it odd that only one set of the purple potatoes were ready, but did not question the wisdom of Mother Earth. We dug carefully but thoroughly so as not to disturb the others. There are three more mounds of purple potatoes with hardy vines still going strong, plus a row of red potatoes and another of Yukon Golds maturing beneath the earth.
As an aside, the meal was a real farm-to-table last grasp of summer with volumes of just-picked produce: I grilled the pattypan squashes that I was picking when I discovered the potatoes, herbed-up the chicken before my plants die down next month and served some of the last corn on the cob of the season. But the nights are arriving earlier and growing colder. School began two weeks ago. I fear there’s not much time left.

Waiting for the Rain

The rain was supposed to come on Sunday, so we headed out in the morning to check the beds and harvest what had grown while the weather was still dry.

Pay dirt!

The chard was tall, thick and plentiful – just look at the glossy green leaves on the white variety. The radicchio (the last two of four heads) was huge, with green outer leaves and large, burgundy spherical centers. I removed the outer leaves (they can be pretty bitter), but kept them to wilt on a hot grill, which mitigates the flavor. The lemon cucumbers are coming in nicely, adding to the Kirby cucumber haul. We’ve been picking both red and orange cherry tomatoes for weeks, which never make it to the table; they’re so sweet straight off the vine. But our first really large tomato (German Gold, a pale orange variety) came off the vine with ease on Sunday. We left her blushing sisters to ripen just a bit further. We’ve got both Rosa Bianca and slender white eggplants on their way, as well as three dark green acorn squashes (too early!) almost ready to be picked and vines full of tennis-ball sized babies that should ripen into a basketful come September.

But no zucchini. Or pattypan squash. Naturally, just as soon as I’d made the boast that I was giving away mountains of produce did nature strike me back for the brag.

Last Sunday, we experienced a long, torrential downpour with force so violent that the beds were severely beaten down and some structures blown over. We lost power into the night as well. After righting the tomato cages and pole bean obelisks when the rain let up, I surveyed the damage. The center bed consisting mainly of squash had really taken a hit.

“Oh, they’ll bounce back,” I told myself. “They always do.” By midweek, some leaves were back up and filling in, but not many. Yesterday, I really looked: the storm severed a lot of the rambling vines right off of their main stems. Whatever little orbs I had growing on the vines before the storm were hollow, soft or simply dead. The vines themselves are bleached and turning dry. The main stems are trying to send off new shoots – nature is amazing – so I’ll keep you up to date on their success.

This weekend’s rain never did come. I really need to water, not just to keep up production, but to nurture the squash bed back to health.

But for now, let’s break even on Eco-nomics – I knew the chard would put me over the top. To be honest, I more than broken even a while ago. I haven’t been keeping up on the harvest tally like last year, and beyond this date, I may not do it to the dollar. Oh, the garden is producing – don’t get me wrong, I’ve picked more salads than I care to calculate, not even tallying the first two heads of radicchio – but I think I’ll keep a roundabout running total offline and approximate at the end of the season. And anyway, my pricing is admittedly somewhat less than scientific this time around and as last year, a bit on the low side.

Triple bale of chard $5
Radicchio $5
3 lbs cukes @ $.99/lb $2.97
3+ lbs cherry & other tomatoes @ $1.29 $3.87
2 lbs purple and yellow beans @1.29 $2.58
From $6.86 in the red last time: Ahead by $12.56

Stuffed Squash

Earlier than anticipated, I’m already giving away produce.

One eight-ball zucchini plant produced her first little squash well over two weeks ago and the rest of them, obviously jealous, have been pumping them out to keep up. I had forgotten how productive summer squash can be once you pick the first fruit. The pale, tender green variety has been the most productive, but the sunny yellow and dark green types are catching up.

Either way, those sweet little orbs have made their way to friends and family. In our household, they’ve been cut into sticks to dip in hummus, halved and grilled, sliced and steamed, and as of last night, stuffed.

I first prepared cous cous then blended in Greek gigante beans in a light tomato base with a touch of garlic. I cut the stem tops off the squashes, hollowed out the inside, the slicked them (inside & out) with a little olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper. I quickly grilled them to blister the outsides and lightly sweeten the flavor while keeping the squash still firm. Once removed from the grill, I spooned in the cous cous mixture, topped them all with a final crunch of sea salt and a drizzle of olive oil, then served them with roasted red and yellow peppers fresh from the grill, which my husband chopped roughly and used as a garnish.

Squash aside, we’ve also harvested two pounds of wax beans and easily two pounds of Kirby cucumbers. Those barely make it to the table or into salads, as they’re just so crisp and delicious eaten whole while sitting on the patio, straight off the vine.

2 lbs wax beans @ $1.29 / $2.58
2 lbs cukes @ $.99 / $1.98
Conservatively, 5 lbs zucchini @ $.99 / $4.95
Many Salads of green & red looseleaf lettuce $2
Harvested: $11.51
Offsetting last “in the red” total of $23.37:
Still in the red by $11.86, but quickly closing the gap.

Grilled Butternut Squash

Sunday may have been Father’s Day, but the evening was a veritable celebration of Mother Earth.

I served a fresh-picked salad, added a flurry of basil over the main chicken dish and a chiffonade of sage over the sides, and presented a rhubarb pie sprinkled with fresh black raspberries for dessert - all of which came from the backyard.

Plus, I used the last of my butternut squash that was harvested last fall. Which is good, because I have eight Waltham Butternut Squash plants growing like gangbusters in my middle bed.

I couldn’t believe how well the squash was preserved after all this time. Once cut open, it was sweetly glistening and still as orange as I remembered that the first-picked were.

I wanted to go beyond the wintry preparations and pureés of squash that we’re all used to, so I thought of a classic combination to vary: butternut squash, sage and shaved parmesan cheese. I cut the two large squashes lengthwise, then spritzed some cooking spray on the outer skin sides. I then rubbed a blend of olive oil, garlic, sea salt, pepper and a touch of white wine vinegar to the flesh. I topped it all with the sage I’d picked while gathering basil leaves and salad greens.

I preheated the grill to about 400 degrees – a good roasting temperature – then placed the squash on, flesh side up, and closed the top so the grill would act as an oven. I turned them over after 15 minutes, when the sage had frizzled a bit and the garlic and olive oil had sizzled their way into flavoring the flesh of the squash.

Two rotations later (got to get those grill marks!) I removed them and immediately re-seasoned with a little salt and pepper, then the parmesan.

The skin was delicate and papery, but nutty and earthy, completely crumbly and edible. The flesh was soft and tasty even after a full period of winter and spring storage. In a way, I was sad to see the last of my squash go, but am really looking forward to this year’s harvest.

Eating Our Way Through the Backyard

It has begun.

On Saturday evening, my daughter ate her way through the backyard. Starting with our black raspberry bush, whose canes are producing like gangbusters this year, she picked the outer few while I waded into the thorny underbrush to get the rest. Dee-lish! After that, we hit the sugar snap peas, swollen from recent rain for the loudest “snap” with each sweet bite. She ventured on to both purple and green basil – a nice garnish, she said. I nibbled some outer leaves of my mache to try, but she took a pass and “traded” me for my share of the sugar snaps. We’ve also picked the equivalent of a $3.99 grocery-store clamshell of mesclun for a few salads so far this year.

It wasn’t exactly a feast that night, but it was fun and it really felt like summer again.

And, like last year, things are just coming up on their own from seeds, compost, buried kitchen scraps or whatever wintered over. So far, we’ve got two types of climbing beans and no fewer than a dozen “secret” tomato plants popping up in the squash beds and elsewhere, which I have thinned to six of the strongest plants. The biggest surprise? Our secret potatoes. I looked out the back window last month during a rainy weekend and kept wondering about this weed, or something, that just kept getting bigger and bigger. When I ventured out on that finally-dry Monday afternoon, I recognized it immediately: it was a potato plant! Did we miss one of the fingerlings or russets during the harvest last year? I laughed so hard.

The funny thing is that when I told my daughter upon picking her up from kindergarten, she bolted out of the car and into the backyard, hunted around a bit then quickly identified it. Yes, we all know what a potato looks like, but how many of you out there know what the actual plant looks like?

That’s my girl. I’m proud of her. And the fun really has begun.

Eco-nomics update:
Romano Bean Seeds $0.80
Kirby Cucumbers $1.99
4-Pack of Tomatoes w/5 plants $1.99
Acorn Squash $1.79
Eggplants – 2 pks @$1.99 $3.98
Sugar Baby Watermelons $1.98
Subtotal: $10.55
Added to previous total $18.31
Total Spent: $28.86

Harvested:
Picked salad greens $3.99
Handfuls of sugar snaps $1.50

In the black by: $23.37

Starting Seedlings

We started our first seeds of the season indoors this weekend, and had our first “incidents” of the season within 24 hours.

My daughter and I on Saturday morning finally got around to sowing tomato seeds in a peat-pellet tray. The excitement and anticipation never disappoints, as she completely took over once we commenced operations at the kitchen counter. More skilled this year than last, she soaked the pellets, inserted the first tiny seeds into the swollen peat balls, then moved onto the next variety – without assistance or instruction from me. She became somewhat upset when I offered help!

In addition to the tomato seeds, we made a row of six sunflower seeds, which came from a packet given to her last year by my best friend. I’m excited about these, as they are not the “usual” yellow sunflowers. We grew those giants last year with great results, but these flowers come in mixed autumnal tones that should be rich, deep and dark.

We placed the covered tray near a sunny window, and no sooner did our cat Daisy lay atop it, crush the cover, and settle into the depressed “bed” that surrounded her. Not good.

The next morning, I awoke to find the tray overturned and on the floor, with peat pellets in piles. Not good either. I could barely tell if the seeds were still in the soil, much less discriminate between the tomato pellets and the sunflower pellets. That will be more apparent when they sprout, but until then, I need to keep an eagle eye on the tray. Remember that last year, Maisy clipped most of my celery root seedlings along with some others. And once fallen, the cats like to bat around the ball-shaped swollen pellets like toys, leaving looping trails of dirt and flakes of peat in their wake.

The tray is secured shut with a rubber band now and moved to a different window. We’ll keep you posted.

What We’re Growing this Year:
Pole Beans: Yellow Wax, Kwintus Beans, Emerité Filet Beans, Purple Podded pole beans
Summer squash: white and mixed-color pattypan; mixed color eightball zucchini
Winter squash: Butternut, Delicata
Red, White and Purple Potatoes (which we’ll buy and sprout in the coming weeks)
Tomatoes: Black Cherry, Sun Gold Cherry, Black Russian, Husky Gold and a red tomato from seeds given by a friend’s Polish Godmother.
Dwarf bok choy
Lemon Cucumbers

What’s in the Ground Now:
Rhubarb and Bright Lights Swiss chards
Mesclun mix, Mache, Radicchio
Tuscan Lacinato Kale
Sugar Snap Peas
Golden Beets

What I’ll Pick-up at the Nursery after the Last Frost Date:
Either Rosa Bianca or White Eggplant
Purple and Green Basil
Kirby Cucumber plants
Maybe a Roma and/or Big Boy tomato plant or two

Whatever I purchase will be included in this year’s Eco-Nomics, which so far is pretty low.

Early Beginnings

The farm has begun.

Tuscan kale, sugar snap peas, rhubarb Swiss chard, rainbow Swiss chard, a row of golden beets and wide patch of baby lettuces are all in the ground. Save the $1.19 mesclun mix, every seed was left over from last year or the year before. They’re still viable, and coming up.

When I purchased the mesclun seeds early last month, I had to exercise some restraint. When we see the first seed stands of the season, my daughter and I both become wide-eyed and energized. I’m like a kid in a candy store – full of hope for the growing season to come. Then we’ll bounce from store to store to see if other seed stands are up and running. She just goes insane, picking packet after packet until they spill out of her little hands. “Let’s grow this!” “Can we grow corn?” “I want the carrots again!”

Ah, that “again.” I knew we had some red carrot seeds from last year, but hadn’t taken a full seed inventory and didn’t remember precisely what I had on hand. We bought just the mesclun mix (with one of us leaving the store moping) then headed home to check our stock.

We had just about everything in the quantities needed for a good harvest. We did not, however, have enough varieties to fill all of the beds. I want to try more “storable” items for winter, like squashes, maybe parsnips and definitely more potatoes than I did last year. I also wanted a few different summer crops, specifically yellow wax beans.

My favorite catalog, John Scheepers, had only a bush variety. Plus, all the seeds I’m re-using this year are Scheepers seeds. Should I forsake them for a different company? I did: Jung Seeds had a climbing wax bean, “Kentucky Wonder,” so my daughter and I and I built an order around it.

Along with the pole beans, we chose mixed color eight ball zucchini, mixed pattypan squash, mache (or lamb’s ear lettuce) and dwarf pak choi.

The baby bok choy was an impulse at the end – a good one, I hope. It’s easy to grow and quick to harvest. And we like vegetarian stir-fries in this household.

The seeds haven’t come yet … I’m getting a little worried. The time for planting the mache will soon pass.

So, with seeds in the ground and more on the way, I may as well start the Eco-Nomics for the season:

Mesclun seeds $ 1.19
Jung Seeds $16.12
Total: $18.31

Inventory also went beyond seeds. I have peat pellets left over from last year, along with the reusable growing trays and half a bag of seed starting mix. My daughter and I will start our tomato seeds this week.

A Girl Can Dream, Can't She?

Plant, plant, plant your seeds
Neatly in a row
Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily,
Don’t forget your hoe!

My first garden catalog
Came by mail today
Seeds and vines and roots and herbs
I can’t wait ‘til May.

We won’t wait ‘til then
You know just what I mean
Seedlings started extra early
Will deliver green.

Heirloom tomatoes, climbing beans
Seed potatoes – Wow!
Purple basil, baby squash
I can nearly taste them now.

But first I have to narrow down,
From a thousand items all told
I want them all, I can’t decide
This winter has been so cold.

But spring will dawn, my beds will thaw
My robin will make the scene
But until that day, I’ll close my eyes
And all I’ll do is dream.

Last Call

It’s over.

Two and a half pounds of knobby, gnarly, hairy-rooted celeriac came out of the ground this weekend.

I sat solemnly astride a pail of water, knife in hand, silently slicing off the tall, green tops, then gently removing roots and ends, dipping each muddy orb into the water as it took shape. My bare hands turned increasingly purple and stiff, wet from the water, further chilled by the very cold Sunday air.

When all were cleaned, I sat on the grass, eyeing the empty celery root area of that largest bed. It grew aside the potatoes. I lifted my body up briefly, with the intention of digging in the potato area with my bare frozen hands in the hopes of finding a stray spud. Then I mentally pictured the desperate act I was considering.

In the end, I preserved my last shred of dignity and did not dig. I went inside, closed the back door and called it a season.

Last Eco-Nomics:
2.5 lbs Celery Root @ $2.99:
Total: $7.48

Last Eco-nomics posting: $186.05
This harvest tally: $7.48
Ahead by a Total of: $193.53
“Whole Foods” Pricing: $193.53 x 3.5 = $677.36

Not bad for a few handfuls of seeds and a rack of peat pellets.

Keep in mind that I’ve been keeping track of an “ahead by” figure – i.e., my garden actually produced $243.23 worth of goods, but I knocked off the initial expense of $49.70.

I can’t wait for next year.

Nearing the End

I knew this day would come.

It’s time to put my beds to bed. I have been putting it off for reasons other than the cold and the tangled mess of refuse it will create. I just don’t want the gardening season to be over.

But my squash vines are unsightly and dying. The tomatoes are not ripening. The bean vines long ago stopped producing in any meaningful way and have lost most of their leaves. All my potatoes are harvested. The celery root is ready to come out of the ground.

I cleared out the first bed two Sundays ago by picking the last of the Swiss Chard, a double bale. The stems were narrow and tender, and the colors were far deeper than seen earlier, likely due to the cold weather and the fact that I left the leaves out for so long in the false hope that my garden could survive the winter. The Kentucky Wonder bean vines covering those trellises and winding up the gutter pipe managed to put out one last pound of beans. Not bad for four or five year old seeds planted “just to see” if they’d grow. Some beans dried and went to seed, so I collected those seeds for use next year.

The tomato vines have grown rattier with each passing day, yet they were still completely heavily laden with fruit, all green. We collected each possibly usable tomato and placed them in paper bags to ripen indoors. The brown and cold-injured fruits went to be composted. I pray the tomatoes will ripen in the bags and I can squeeze out one last panzanella from them, as they are largely Sungold and black cherry tomatoes. I’ll let you know what happens. The larger mortgage lifters, black Russians and my daughter’s yellow tomatoes did not fare well once the cold set in.

One and a half pounds of pattypan squash emerged from the squash bed, which started look a bit ratty during Labor Day weekend. The buttercup squash vines had long since died; the pattypans, a summer squash, gave a good fight. The butternut vines, however, keep pumping out flowers, even in their unsightly condition. They also bear two new squashes – little as they are, I’m keeping that area untouched, in the hopes that they will mature before a serious frost. Hope springs eternal.

It does, actually. Due to four days of rain in the forecast this past weekend, I decided to leave my celery root in the ground in the hopes that each will plump up just a bit more. I left the chili pepper plants alone, since those peppers stand on the ends of the plants like firecrackers – a bit of red-hot cheer in the shortening days of autumn. A girl can dream, can’t she?

Eco-Nomics:
Double Bunch of Swiss Chard: 2 lbs @ $2 = $4
One Last pound of beans @ $.99 = $.99
Pattypan Squash: 1.5 lbs @ $1.50 = $2.25
The last Zucchetta Trombolina: 1.5 lbs @ $.99 = $1.49
Total: $8.73

Last Eco-nomics posting: $177.32
This harvest tally: $8.73
Ahead by a Total of: $186.05
“Whole Foods” Pricing: $x 3.5 = $651.18

The Earth Gives

Remember, “It’s a Potato! It’s a Potato!”?

This time, it was 65 potatoes.

We harvested the fingerlings to utter amazement – truly shock and awe.

One fingerling potato went into the ground this spring. Sixty-Five came out this weekend. I am not kidding. Some are the size of golf balls, but most are quite sizable and eminently roastable with garlic confit and a crunch of sea salt. I’m salivating as they cure for a few days on the back porch.

The quantity simply blew me away. My daughter counted them out as we sat on the patio, enveloped by the flame sunset of autumn. The counting just went on and on, our eyes widening further at each turn of ten: 30, then 40, then 50, then 60 …

And thank goodness she came out to help. The roots and tubers spread into a circumference far beyond anything I would have expected. We kept digging, excavating, and finding more and more roots that wended their ways sideways in a starburst throughout the bed. Some roots were thick, some were spidery, but when we pulled them gently, guaranteed there would be more tubers greeting us at the ends.

The Earth gives and gives. One thumb sized fingerling yielded just so much. I saw firsthand why potatoes are a staple crop in the world, how civilizations have been built upon successful crops, and have fallen in their failure. The garden has given me a great deal this year, more so than in years past and not just in terms of crops. Add to that a new level of respect for Mother Earth – it seems in a way almost crass that I’m doing a running tally of monetary gains.

Suffice it to say, once the garden is put to bed, I can’t wait to start composting and amending her soil until a hard freeze, then commence again come spring. Dirty work it is, but it’s the least I can do.

Eco-Nomics:
Fingerling Potatoes: 9 lbs @ $.99 = $8.91
Butternut Squash: 24 lbs @ $.99 = $23.76
Tomatoes: 4 usable lbs @ $.99 = $3.96
Pattypan squash: 2 lbs @ $1.50: $3
Zucchetta Trombolina: 6 lbs @ $.99 = $5.94
Total: $45.57

Last Eco-nomics posting: $129.65
This harvest tally: $45.57
Ahead by a Total of: $177.22
“Whole Foods” Pricing: $x 3.5 = $613.27

Theater of the Absurd, II

Or, as I like to call it, The Garden’s Greatest Hits.

My original “Theater” entry was more about a sudden freakish volume of harvest. This one is just plain about the freaks.

It happens every year: Sometimes it’s a bell pepper that looks like Nixon, other times, it’s pole beans that twist themselves into letters of the alphabet. This is not supermarket produce bred for looks. I do regret not having taken a picture of that scrunched-in, wrinkled Buddy Hackett tomato, so I’ll just have to leave that one to your imagination.

Here is our beheaded frog at right. Some of my carrots forked, so I learned a lesson about manured soil. I thought enough time had elapsed between the winter amendment and seed sowing. Apparently not.

Moving on to our Canada Goose, this trombolina zucchini both entertained and fed the crowd.

This potato happened before planting. Yes, I draw on my food when so inspired. I sat this potato on my kitchen windowsill to start the sprouting, but once the face went on, he wasn’t going anywhere: I didn’t plant him. The sprouts were just too big, he got a little too old and wrinkled, and, well, I enjoyed his company.

This trombolina zucchini somehow escaped my view amidst the large leaves and heavy vines that cover the plants’ growing trellis. Once discovered, we decided to leave it on the vine, just to see what happened. Holy moly. The only reason I cut it down is because the bulbous seed end started touching the ground. That, and it was sucking the life and productivity out of the rest of the plant.

We didn’t eat this one, however. It got a little too husky.

So, that’s life on the farm this season. I still have a second round of butternut squash to pick, two types of potatoes to harvest soon and my celery root to pull from the ground at the end of the month. I’ll let you know if The Virgin Mary appears on any of them.

It’s a Potato! It’s a Potato!

It was time.

Turning fork in hand, I headed out to harvest some russet potatoes. The vines of one plant had been declining slowly in recent weeks, and I’d been itching to dig them up. Oddly, my daughter was not so into it, “Nah, I don’t feel like it.” But once the messiness began, she got into the game.

I found the first potato close to the surface, where I’d been peeking at it and checking on it for weeks. It was about the size of an elongated tennis ball. I gently but deeply forked a wide area around the plant and brought up another little guy. My daughter was not impressed. The next forking brought up a monster: it was HUGE! Even I couldn’t believe my eyes. That’s when she ran to the shed, retrieved her Dora the Explorer hand-cultivator and got really into it, digging through the pile of loose soil.

What she got was a rock – which, upon realizing it, she tossed immediately into a side bed. We both persisted. She found another rock. So did I. I forked some more. Things didn’t look promising.

“Mom, I found one!”

“Is it a rock or a potato?”

She moved her hand up and down as if to check the weight. She wiped off some dirt with her little nearly-five-year-old thumbs. Her eyes widened to the size of saucers.

“It’s a potato! It’s a potato!” she screamed and squealed, running in circles, waving the spud over her head. I started laughing my head off at her reaction. Senor Wences got spooked, bolted out from beneath the hostas and made it to the other side of the yard like a bat out of hell. And she’s dancing around in a loop, squealing with a potato. Yeah, life’s crazy in the backyard.

We dug and checked as if panning for gold until I felt safe no more were in the area. I left the other russet and the fingerling plant undisturbed, as their vines are still green and, I assume, nourishing their tubers.

So, in this instance, one-half a spud thudded into the ground on a whim yielded eight potatoes – nice return! Two are huge, almost the length of my daughter’s head. The others are of varying, medium size, with one tiny pepino. One of the larger ones was damaged during the harvest, so we used it in our Sunday dinner, cut lengthwise and grilled with olive oil, garlic and fresh rosemary. It was pillowy soft, sweet and whiter inside than any russet I’ve ever prepared. Since the potato was uncured, its skin came off almost completely with just a gentle scrubbing.

In fact, everything we ate Sunday night came from our garden, except for the chicken. I gave the bone-in chicken a super-herb treatment with parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme (nod to S&G there), steamed a huge quantity of the purple beans, made “summer on a plate” with tomatoes of all colors and lettuce-leaf basil, and prepared the giant potato with a buttercup squash, which was also excellent: very orange, sweet and quite pumpkin-y.

So, let’s update Eco-Nomics. It was a banner week and weekend for tomatoes, with over a dozen pounds by Friday and another five picked on Sunday. Until the potatoes came into our lives yesterday afternoon, I planned on writing their own entry. But for now, I’ll just let the pictures and poundage speak for themselves.

Russet Potatoes: 6 lbs @ $.89 = $5.34
Tomatoes: 17 lbs @ $.99 = $17
Tuscan Kale: $4
Haricot Verts: 1/2 lb @ $2.49/lb= $1.25
Purple Pole Beans: 1 lb (probably our last) @ $2=$2
Green Beans: 1/2 lb @ $.99/lb: $.50
Pattypan squash: 4 lbs @ $1.50: $6
Total: $36.09

Last Eco-nomics posting: $97.56
This harvest: $36.09
Ahead by a Total of: $123.65
“Whole Foods” Pricing: $129.65 x 3.5 = $467.78

Still Clipping Along

Our nights have grown very cool, very fast, but the garden is still clipping along and still producing. The cooler weather will suit my celery root just fine, which I’ll harvest later this month or in October. The fragrant, bulbous root ends are peeking out of the ground a bit, but still seem small. The potatoes may be ready soon; the vines appear to be on the decline, ever so slightly. I should start some new lettuce seeds over the weekend, and perhaps a row of Tuscan kale and a maybe few cauliflowers. Plus, at the rate my winter squash is still growing and producing new flowers and fruits, I’ll have a huge second harvest later this month – and butternut squash six-ways for Thanksgiving. I’m glad I made that impulse buy and “splurged” on that 20-cent package of seeds!

Another two week’s harvest, as of Friday, the 4th:

Lemon Cucumbers: 3 lbs @ $.99 = $2.97
Haricot Verts: 1 lb @ $2.49/lb= $2.49
Kwintus Beans: 1.5 lbs @1.29/lb = $1.94
Purple Pole Beans: 1.5 lbs @ $2=$3
Green Beans: 1/2 lb @ $.99/lb: $.50
Another 3 lbs Pattypan squash @ $1.50: $ 4.50
3+ pints of cherry tomatoes: $6
6+ Lbs reds, blacks, yellows, striped: $6
Total: $27.40

Last Eco-nomics posting: $70.16
This harvest: $27.40
Total: $97.56

I will indulge from here on out and include a “Whole Foods” price (see previous post). Whole Foods charges five (5) times what I “charge” here for my tomatoes; twice what I do for haricot vert; nearly 5 ½ times what I do for pattypan; 4 times for the chard; twice what I do for other beans … you get the picture. I think a factor of 3.5 should do it:
“Whole Foods” Pricing: $97.56 x 3.5 = $341.46

Theater of the Absurd

That seems to be what my backyard has become.

Heavy rains were to arrive by Friday night. So late in the afternoon, I went out to pick a few tomatoes and other things that the rain might knock off of their vines. I brought a large melamine bowl out, and started with the cucumbers. Filled within minutes, I had to go back inside to get the big colander.

Walking back to the garden, I noticed a buttercup squash was disconnected from its vine. Apparently, it was ready to be picked – it picked itself. I found another one. Then I checked the butternut squashes, which have been of the right color for weeks, but I didn’t know if they’d be ready – they are for winter storage. Well, they were. Back inside, to empty the colander. Then back to the squash patch for the last butternut and to check for pattypans. Back to the house to empty the colander, and out again to finally start on the tomatoes.

Oops, there’s a giant zucchini hanging from its climbing vines! Cut down with a knife, it doesn’t fit anywhere and is laid on a patio table. I also thought I’d check the “secret” potato plant behind that trellis. I don’t think I mentioned it, but about 6 weeks ago, I spied a familiar-looking plant in the back of a bed. I thought it was a potato plant, so I excavated a little and came up with a tiny, red new potato, and tucked it back into the ground. No, I did not plant new potatoes. I had and have no idea where it came from – did I compost some old potatoes at some point? I have things just growing out of nowhere, and this is not the only “surprise” plant. Like I said, this has become the theater of the absurd. I dig a bit with my fingers and the knife and come up with a handful of potatoes. Thank goodness I’m wearing something with pockets today.

Onto the tomatoes – finally. Large varieties first, so the heavy ones are on the bottom. OK, I still have room in the colander for the cherry tomatoes. They roll down to fill in between the large mortgage lifters, yellows and at last! A succulent Black Russian tomato larger than a man’s fist. My two cherry varieties fill the colander to the 2/3 point. May as well check on the beans in the next bed.

The haricot verts fill that last third. No, I am not going back into the house for the umpteenth time to empty this thing. I pile the purple beans on top. Then move onto the Kwintus pole beans, which I proceed to jam vertically into any space I find around the rim. I call my daughter over to hold out her dress, which we use to cradle the overflow.

Overflow is an understatement: just look at the kitchen counter! I’m laughing out loud at this point. I decide not to even deal with the chard. Where all of this came from? It’s ridiculous! And the thing is, while harvesting what amounted to a true and truly unexpected bounty, I spied a good deal more that needed another day or two on their vines. Come Sunday or Monday, we’d do it all over again!

In the interim, I made the freshest, most luscious panzanella salad with the tomatoes that night, a cucumber and farro grain salad side dish (recipe to come), a platter of grilled pattypan squash finished with Romano cheese on Saturday, a corn-basil-tomato and kidney bean salad on Sunday for Monday and Tuesday lunches, and broke out the ZipLoc freezer bags to start preparing produce for the winter.

Lemon Cukes: 4 lbs @ $.99 = $3.96
Haricot Verts: 1 lb @ $2.49/lb= $2.49
Kwintus Beans: 1+ lbs @1.29/lb = $1.29
Purple Pole Beans: Another lb @ $2=$2
3 lbs Pattypan squash @ $1.50: $ 4.50
2+ pints of cherry tomatoes: $4
2 Lbs Mortgage lifter reds plus the big Black Russian plus another lb of yellows: $5
One big zuchetta trombolina (2 lbs @ $.99) $1.98
2 large Buttercup squashes: $5
5 Butternut squashes of varying sizes, all nicely heavy: $9
Total: $39.22

Last Eco-nomics posting, in the black by $30.94
Plus Friday’s circus: $39.22
Total: $70.16

In The Black

While it has been all about chard and beans in recent weeks, we’ve turned the corner into real Jersey territory: Tomatoes!

We’ve got tomatoes in many colors: red, orange, yellow and purple, and awaiting a striped variety to ripen. For some reason, my daughter loves those yellow tomatoes: When we were selecting seeds from catalogs in January then starting them in peat pellets in early spring, she repeatedly (almost obsessively) had to make sure we had purchased and planted the yellows. We had seeds leftover from last year, which we used – but don’t tell her! While that first mortgage lifter picked last week was nearly as big as her face, she had a different gleam in her eyes upon proudly picking her first yellow tomato this weekend.

And yes, she ate it right then and there, like an apple.


Two week’s harvest, as of Saturday, the 15th:

Chard: 3 armloads @ $2= $6.00
Lemon Cukes plus some Kirbies: easily 5 lbs @ $.99 = $1.98
Haricot Verts: 1 lb @ $2.49/lb= $2.49
Kwintus Beans: well over 2 lbs @1.29/lb = $2.58
Purple Pole Beans: About 2 lbs @ $2=$4
Green Beans: 1 lb @ $.99/lb. (see below)
3 lbs Pattypan squash @ $1.50: $ 4.50
And Tomatoes!!!!
2+ pints of cherry tomatoes, mostly SunGold: $4
4 Lbs Mortgage lifter reds: $4
A pound of sweet yellows: $1
Total: $31.55

Last Eco-nomics posting, I was in the red by $0.60
This two-week harvest: $31.54
In the Black! By $30.94.


The chard seems to be slowing down a bit (whew!), although I still plan to use my trading tactic in future recipes and preparations. I thought that my bean vines had slowed completely – with only about 1 lb of filets over two weeks - so I let them be for a bit, and honestly forgot to look at them. Big mistake: The fridge is full of big bags of beans, including Kentucky Wonder pole beans, those 4-year-old seeds I came across and thought I’d plant because, hey, you never know. I had completely forgotten about those, since they’re planted in a different area than the others and they are now threatening to take down a gutter downspout.

I’ve said before that giving it away is half the fun of growing it, and with the addition of fresh-picked tomatoes, those around me are increasingly happy to take some harvest off my hands.

Things to do with a Heavy Harvest

It's not that heavy yet, but half the fun of growing it is giving it away: I can’t imagine anyone turning down a surprise basket of freshly picked vegetables topped with a bouquet of basil and other herbs. But the better half to me is figuring out what to do with it all and inventing new favorites along the way. True, baking is science and you should measure, but cooking is a conversation: let the ingredients take you where they may, and the night lead you where it might. It’s feeling, emotion, l’amore!

I’d mentioned earlier that I’m on my way to writing “Chard 118 Ways” and that should have its own entry. My chervil is a large, productive cloud of delicate green fronds. The cucumbers, both green and yellow, have made their way into newly minted salads (both green and grain salads) and of course into tzatziki recently. Due to the rains, the vines are laden with fruit. The filet beans are still the best simply steamed. I don’t want this to become a laundry list of uses and recipes, so I’ll touch on just three items: Kwintus pole beans, purple beans and pattypan squash.

I’ve done a lot with the Kwintus beans, as noted in quite a few previous entries. But I somehow brought out a new layer of nutty flavor last week when I hosted a dinner. Because the beans are larger and wouldn’t fall through the grates, I decided to grill them at the last minute. I took the meat off the grill to rest before serving, did a quick brush cleaning of the grates, and set to work.
I made my basic grilling toss of olive oil, garlic, S & P, and then finished the grilled beans with a generous douse of fresh lemon juice, parsley and shavings of good Romano cheese and Whoa! They were crisp and still green, yet blistered and black – unbelievably savory and sexy as hell to look at, glistening and tangled together, entwined on a rustic Tuscan pottery platter. I could have made a meal out of them and licked the plate clean. But I had guests over that night and had to pray for leftovers. There weren’t any.

While we grew them last year, Mike has discovered the purple pole beans this summer. I feel as if I’ve rediscovered them a bit myself: I do not remember the color being so velvety, deep and dramatic. They’re just gorgeous! They turn green when cooked, but are largely eaten raw in our household, with long ones sliced in half on a diagonal and eaten plain or with store bought or home made hummus or a basil-y version of my white bean hummus. I served these purple beans raw and cut in half on the bias, their pencil-point tips sticking upward in two chilled cocktail glasses in the aforementioned dinner as somewhat of an afterthought. They were just healthy nibblies served with appetizers, then kept on the table through dinner. All were gone at the end of the night. This weekend, I sliced them into centimeter pieces and tossed them into a summer standard bean salad (cannelini and pink or pinto beans, celery, tomato, loads of parsley, red vinaigrette) – you can’t go wrong with extra crunch and greenery, or purple-ry in this case.

The pattypans are new to my husband – he’d never had them before, or knew they existed. I still remember when he first discovered them growing in the squash patch, asking “What in the heck are those disk things growing outside?” I thought he’d discovered a fungus or mushrooms which, considering all the rain we’ve had, would be our most prolific crop this year, if edible. With their ruffly edges and flying-saucer shape, Mike was a bit skeptical of the squash. But the proof is in the pudding, and taste: Tossed in olive oil, microplaned garlic, lemon juice, S & P, then grilled and finished with a flurry of fresh parsley (and/or basil), he’s convinced now.

I will do exactly that with my Rosa Bianca eggplants – if the plants would even grow! They are tropical and need constant heat. We have had a ton of rain and very cool nights, with barely a day reaching 90 degrees yet this summer. Good for my water and electric bills, but not for the eggplants. I could do an entire entry on just the weather conditions and how they’re affecting the crops – maybe I will. Suffice it to say, many foods are very, very late compared to years past, including tomatoes (barely a half-pint of Sungold Cherries so far) and notably the Zuchetta Trombolina (not a single one yet). That was my earliest heavy-harvest summer crop last year and the most eagerly-awaited this year.

But I am grateful for the success of the garden so far. Very pleased, actually, with the amount of production.

In fact, I’ll quickly add here another bale of Swiss chard ($2.50), another pound and a half of lemon cukes and ½ lb. kirbies ($2), a gorgeous nearly-two-pound bunch of red carrots ($2) and a big basket of beans ($4, all varieties) to the Eco-nomics Harvest:

Expenditures: $49.70
Less Harvest: $49.10 ($21.56 + $17.04 + $10.50, this entry)
Total: - $0.60

Harvest II

This entry will be short and sweet, but the garden is long on flavor and becoming heavy on production. As I mentioned last week, the chard went to my dad. I prepared it with him, using a little olive oil, garlic, S, P and a spritz of lemon at the end. He devoured it – which is good, since the chard keeps regenerating beyond my rate of consumption. I also gave a nice-sized bag of the purple pole beans to my sister on Thursday - I was glad to, she's great. And my daughter was very proud to do so.

I’ve also harvested chervil, other herbs, another bowlful of lettuce – little bits that I should calculate, but I’m just not in the mood to nickel and dime. The garden has given me a great deal, both physically and otherwise.

Everything else is producing steadily, and a few SunGold cherry tomatoes have ripened to orange. None has made it to the table – picked, eaten and savored on the spot. The picture at right was taken on Wednesday; the week’s harvest was tallied as of Saturday, the 25th:

Chard: 1 @ $2= $2.00
Kirby Cukes: 1 lb @ $.99/lb (Shop Rite price)= $.99
Lemon Cukes: 2 lb @ $.99 = $1.98
Haricot Verts: 1 lb @ $2.49/lb= $2.49
Kwintus Beans: 2 lbs @1.29/lb = $2.58
Purple Pole Beans: Over 2 lbs @ $2=$4
2 lbs Pattypan squash @ $1.50: $3
Total: $17.04

Expenditures: $49.70
Less Harvest: $38.60 ($21.56 + $17.04)
Total: - $11.10

I never thought the break-even point would be on its way so early!