The Vegetable Garden: Aesthetic and Gustatory Pleasures

I love my vegetable garden. What could be more wonderful than bringing a basket of just-picked vegetables into the house for a meal? It's not just the taste that is important––you'll never buy a potato as good as one that's homegrown––but there is also the act of planting a seed, then watching the seedlings emerge, grow, and bear fruit. Even after almost 30 years of raising vegetables in this place, it still seems a magical process. It's a process of hit and miss––some years a great eggplant crop, another year hardly a one; sometimes insects go on the rampage––but there are always enough successes; it's a process of hope. As Margaret Atwood wrote:

Gardening is not a rational act. 

And May Sarton, in At Seventy: A Journal:

A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself.

Although I've mostly given up on my flower borders, concentrating my energy on growing vegetables, I do plant some flowers amongst the the food crops. It's a delight to look out at my garden and see towering sunflowers, adding good cheer to the scene. These are Lemon Queen, and this plant grew to 8 feet tall this summer. But it's not just the sunflowers that I find beautiful; each vegetable plant has its own aesthetic qualities. Corn tassels pointing into the air are like delicate waving fingers.

  

A sweet pepper plant shows off its dazzling fruit, lovely to see, and to taste. 

Lettuces, with leaves of various shapes radiating from a center, are as beautiful as floral bouquets. 

Red cabbage, a grand leafy vegetable, has gorgeous leaves surrounding a stunning volleyball-sized center. 

                                 

I feel so much satisfaction in looking at my harvested crops. They are a reward of hard work, and I'm happy just contemplating them before eating. These three melons are grown from seed from Fedco Seeds, and are: on the left Alvaro, a Charentais melon; behind is a honeydew, White Honey; and on the right is a delicious hybrid, Sensation. Each of these has a different flavor, and they taste nothing like supermarket melons; oh, they are so much more delicious! 

                                 


The eggplants were very happy this year, probably because of the early heat spell that we had. I love eggplant, and it's a treat to have fresh ones to cook. Two food favorites: fried eggplant sandwiches, and eggplant salad, both family recipes. Click on the links for the recipes. The fried eggplant link has a bonus of a recipe for homemade pita bread. 

                                 

Sungold cherry tomatoes glow on the vine. They are so delicious that I stand and eat them in the garden, popping one after another into my mouth, so they rarely make it into the house. But I can recommend a way of cooking them: toss with olive oil and sauté in a pan until soft and caramelized; simple and quite tasty. 

Another vegetable that barely makes it out of the garden to a plate is corn. The kernels are so tender and sweet that cooking isn't necessary. What a pleasure to stand out in the sun, admiring the plants around me, while eating an ear of corn.

Winter squashes are like hidden gems, nestled under rampant foliage.

Preserving crops is an important part of gardening. Many of my crops will feed me through the winter into next spring. I make jam: rhubarb in the spring, blueberry and raspberry in early summer, and here: green tomato jam––recipe at the link––which is similar to a marmalade. 

I'm grateful for summers with abundant tomatoes, so I'm able to can, and to freeze sauce. I know I sound like a broken record, but home-canned tomatoes are so much more tasty than even the best canned tomatoes you can buy. I favor Juliet paste tomatoes for these purposes. For fresh eating I grow a variety of heirloom tomatoes.

 

I hang some crops to dry in the mudroom, here oat straw––which I'll cut into small pieces and use for tea––and garlic. "Awe", a perfect sentiment in regards to vegetables, is the top of a Bread and Puppet poster. 

 

Also in the mudroom are onions, with a Karl Blossfeldt photograph at the lower right, an image of gourd squash stems.

Finally, a peak inside my chest freezer, which is getting packed to the top with summer produce. You can see broccoli, green beans. zucchini, corn, whole green peppers for stuffing at the upper right, and some homemade bagels (these aren't from the garden; I don't plan to grow wheat). In addition to these ways of saving vegetables, I also have a root cellar where I keep carrots, beets, potatoes, and cabbage once the weather has cooled. 

I think about the winter ahead with satisfaction, when I can ruminate on what I'll eat for lunch or dinner and know that an abundant variety of vegetables is at hand. The pleasure goes beyond good food, into a feeling of life well lived. 

June!

Siberian iris Summer Skies

There have been glorious days this past week, with bright sun, low humidity, and perfect temperatures for spring. As I walked around my garden, admiring all the flowering plants, I kept singing to myself June is bustin' out all over..., that wonderful Rogers and Hammerstein song from Carousel: 

June is bustin' out all over
The feelin' is gettin' so intense
That the young Virginia creepers
Have been huggin' the bejeepers
Outta all the mornin' glories on the fence!
Because it's June!

The flowers in my garden are at their height this month. I look out the back kitchen window and see a mass of the perfectly named Summer Skies iris, with pale blue and white petals floating above green. 

Peony Charlie's White

The peony is the queen of the flower garden.  They have a frothy exuberance, and if I would describe their character, I would say that they have a great generosity of spirit.

Korean lilac Miss Kim, with Swallowtail butterfly

One of the delights of lilacs, aside from their form and delicious scent, is that they are very attractive to swallowtail butterflies. This late-blooming Korean lilac is a butterfly magnet: I see several of them at one time, fluttering around the shrub, landing and sipping, and fluttering and sipping again. 

Wild rose

This small pink rose with a delicate sweet perfume was growing in my backyard when I moved here over 25 years ago. It has since become a lovely large mound, which is dotted with bright color in June. 

Rosa Rugosa

I planted Rosa rugosa along the side wall of my studio, and it has since grown into a wide hedge. When it's blooming in June, the delicious scent wafts into the studio building, and I hear the sound of bees buzzing as they gather pollen. When I watch them inside the flower they seem to be ecstatically wallowing in its center, drunk with pleasure. 

Honeysuckle Dropmore Scarlet

A honeysuckle climbs alongside my front door, blazing orange. I do love the honeysuckles we can grow up here in zone 4, but I miss the ones of my youth, those with scent and taste. During summers at the Jersey shore, we saw masses of the white flowers with a delicious smell. I'll never forget how my father taught us to remove the end of the flower, pulling out the pistil with its drop of nectar. Tasting that was a magical treat. Whenever I see that variety of honeysuckle I'm moved to enact that same ritual. 

Daylily Lemon Lily

The Lemon Lily is the earliest of the daylilies to bloom, and its bright cheerful face is very welcome in June. It too has a lovely scent.

Yellow Flag iris

Another intense yellow flower blooming near the pond is the Yellow Flag iris. It loves wet spots and can grow in standing water. Its form is beautiful, with large drooping petals. It is thought to be a possible model for the design of the fleur-de-lis.

Wild Strawberries

June is also the month for strawberries, both cultivated and wild. The teeny berries have begun to color in my lawn and field.

Cherry tomato Sungold

The garden is producing asparagus, lettuce, and lots of spinach. One thing that I find very exciting is seeing the cherry tomatoes begin to form. Up here in northern Vermont, the growing season is short and tomatoes don't come into full production until August, but here is a sign that I may have ripe Sungolds in 3 weeks or so, depending on the weather. Events like this are what keep me gardening. 

There is a famous Henry James quote about a season: 

Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the most beautiful words in the English language.

I would like to add to that "June day, June day..."

 

Orange and Almond Cake, "Tarta de Naranja"

An intense orange flavor combined with the texture of ground almonds makes this cake a delicious treat for a winter's day. The recipe comes from Claudia Roden's Mediterranean Cookery; she writes that the recipe came from a Spanish travel companion. It is a flourless cake, consisting of only almonds, eggs, sugar, and orange zest; it is then impregnated with an orange syrup, so it becomes very very moist. It's quite simple to make, the only complication being separating the eggs and beating the egg whites till stiff. The cake was a hit at my art group yesterday.

4 eggs, separated
125 g (4 oz) sugar (note: I always used a kitchen scale for measuring, so I looked up the equivalent in cups: it's about 1/2 cup)
grated zest of one orange
50 g (2 oz) ground almonds
50 g (2 oz) blanched almonds, finely chopped (2 oz equals 2/5 cup, so a little more than 1/3, a little less than 1/2 cup)

For the syrup:
Juice of 3 or 4 oranges, equaling about 300 ml, or 10 fl oz)
75 g (3 oz, 3/8 cup) sugar
1 cinnamon stick
1 Tbs orange liqueur (optional; I add the zest from 1/2 orange for more flavor instead of the liqueur)

• Preheat oven to 350º
• Mix egg yolks with sugar, orange zest, and all the almonds.
• Beat egg whites till stiff; fold gently into the egg yolk mixture. 
• Pour mixture into a greased and floured non-stick 8 inch cake pan. 
• Bake for 30-35 minutes, until lightly browned. The recipe calls for 45 minutes, but that's much too long, at least in my oven. The cake will puff up in the oven and sink back down as it cools.
• Allow the cake to cool, then transfer it to a serving dish.
• For the syrup, simmer the orange juice with the sugar and cinnamon stick (and orange zest if using) for a few minutes until the sugar is melted. Add the liqueur if using. 
• Prick the cake with small holes, for instance using a toothpick, then pour the syrup over it. It takes a while for the syrup to really sink in. Roden suggests eating the cake the day after it is made, which is what I've done. 

Serves 6-8 hungry people, or 8-12 with smaller portions, which I think are quite sufficient.

Enjoy!


For my newer readers, here's a link to more of the recipes on this blog.

The Transitions of November

On Sunday we turned the clocks back, making us even more aware of the changing light as we move towards winter. The sun is lower in the sky, the days are shorter, and something I am very aware of as I look out my east facing windows at dawn: the sun is rising farther in the south as its arc in the sky lessens, and we move closer to the winter solstice.

The sunflowers have dried, but I've left them in the garden for the chickadees, who love their seeds.

In the orchard, one tree of winter apples is still festooned with fruit, though all the leaves are gone.

The Burning Bush has turned from leafy crimson to scarlet berries.

Grasses and perennials have a quiet beauty, very different from the vivid colors of summer.

In the woods, drying grasses are pale green against the warmer hues of fallen leaves, once bright but now dun.

The grays of November can be very beautiful in their subtle variations, which look softer at this time of year; once snow is on the ground, the contrasts of tree and field become more intense.

Although October's brilliant maple foliage is gone, there is still color in the woods: the golds and rusts of beeches glow in the duller light. When I drove to NYC last week, there were also the rich colors of oaks, which grow closer to the Connecticut river, but not near my home.

And, there are the tamaracks, a deciduous conifer, growing here and farther north, adding their color to the remaining dark evergreens. There is much visual pleasure during this month of change, before the world becomes white with snow.

Late Summer Harvest

As August advances, the sound of the cicadas and crickets reaches a crescendo, heralding the height of the summer, and its ending. It is a paradoxical time, as the fruits of autumn and those of high summer ripen at once. The main crop of Duchess of Oldenburg apples is ripe, and what says fall more than a bite into a crisp, tart apple?

As they ripen, the apples fall to the ground, making picking easy, and providing delicious meals for the local deer, and an occasional bear. The image is one of pure abundance.

In the vegetable garden, the summer crops are ripening. The corn is late this year, the ears are small and the plants not as prolific: cool wet weather for much of the summer is to blame. But I am enjoying what there is. 

The tomatoes, too, have had a hard time with this summer's weather; I won't be canning many quarts this year. I'm glad I'm not a farmer, and don't depend on earnings from the always uncertain harvest.

I baby along the peppers (Carmen) and eggplants (Diamond; from Fedco Seeds).....

                                 
   

 

....and melons, which I grow on a soil warming black plastic mulch, and under row covers, to keep them toasty during those cool northern summers. It's especially magical to grow melons in this short season climate. This golden beauty is an Orange Honey melon, a honeydew variety.

The seedheads of dill plants are blooming like yellow starbursts, soon to form seeds.

The dill seeds are for me, the sunflower seeds––here a head partially eaten––are for the birds. I love seeing the small birds flitting among the sunflowers, hanging from the laden heads, eating their fill.

And then there are the flowers: the hydrangeas that in late summer are can be picked and dried for winter bouquets. The Annabelle hydrangea turns from white to green when it is ready to be dried.

The blooms of Hydrangea paniculata glow pink as they mature. Flowers, fruit, vegetables, all honor the fecundity of summer.

Strawberry Muffins

It's strawberry season here in northern Vermont. Along with strawberry shortcake, a recipe I love is this one for strawberry muffins, which came from a container of Stonyfield Farm yogurt. Using yogurt instead of milk adds extra flavor to the muffins. I usually freeze some chopped strawberries so I can make these during the winter. The same recipe works well for blueberries or raspberries (I'd much rather have a raspberry muffin than a blueberry one).

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 teas baking soda
2 eggs
1 cup yogurt
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 teas vanilla
1 cup chopped strawberries

Preheat oven to 375º.
Mix flours, sugar, and baking soda in a bowl.
In another bowl, beat eggs, then mix them with the yogurt, melted butter, and vanilla.
Toss the strawberries in the flour mixture, then pour liquid ingredients into the flour and blend.
Spoon batter into greased muffin tins: 12 for smaller muffins, 10 for larger (I prefer fewer larger muffins).
Bake for 20-25 minutes, until top is golden and batter is cooked through.

Waiting Patiently

We are still in deep winter here in northern Vermont: today the wind is howling and snow is blowing. But there are tight little packages on trees and shrubs ready to burst into flower and leaf when the time is right. A pair of American Cranberry buds stand up tall, their rounded shapes coming to a point like onion domes.

In the woods, the buds of beech trees are long and elegantly wrapped.

The lilac has large rounded buds, which look as though they're ready to open, but it will be two months before that will happen.

Branches and buds of blueberry bushes are a vivid red, pulsing with life next to the cool white snow.

Small buds climb raspberry canes.

Two red apple tree buds point downwards, but hold up hope.

The apple trees, with their pointing red fingers, look like they are celebrating their good fortune on a bright and cold day. Some day in May, the buds will open, leaves will begin to form; this year there will also be flowers, and if all goes well, fruit in the fall. The trees and shrubs know that winter will end and the growing season will begin; they remind me to be as calm and patient as they are.