Swashbuckling pirates were at work in our corn patch today. Corn season being over, my husband went out in the morning to chop the plants so they could be tilled under. With a sharp machete in one hand, he made vigorous back-and-forth strokes across every standing stalk, starting at the top and working his way …
In summer so many vegetables beckon from the garden it’s hard to choose, so I make soupe au pistou. Every country has its multiple-vegetable soup. In Italy you’d make minestrone. What makes this French Provencal one a treat is the last-minute addition of basil, garlic and olive oil, pounded into a paste in a mortar. …
“The man who joyfully cleaves his ancestral fields with the hoe … will never be persuaded … to cleave the sea,” wrote the Roman poet Horace in his First Ode. During Horace’s time, the first century BC, forged iron hoes were numerous and varied, from heavy, mattock-like tools to the more slender sarculum, which had …
Sniffling and snuffling. Wheezing and sneezing. Hay fever season hit our farm so hard this year we thought of renaming it Phlegm Farm. Allergies are no fun when you work out of doors. This doesn’t mean that the plant pollen that causes hay fever can’t also find its way inside your home or office. But …
Best yet, it is a grain crop that home gardeners can easily grow. You sow it after danger of frost, about ½-inch deep, in a finely textured, moistened seedbed — the kind you’d prepare for carrots.
If you have ever wondered who created the great classic recipes, the answer, in most cases, is “nobody.” They sprang from the garden, farm and orchard, just as a carrot sprouts in the row or an apple falls from the tree. No Italian chef set out to invent minestrone; it is simply the contents of …
The artichoke is a formidable vegetable. Armed like a cactus, the spiny globe is as much a challenge as a temptation. You must peel away many sharply pointed scales to reach what Pablo Neruda called “the peaceable dough of its green heart.” But the reward is great. The heart is silky-tender when steamed or boiled, …
Gardeners and cooks make excellent bedfellows. Likewise, farmers and chefs, judging from the number of restaurant menus that honor the producers of their vegetables, meats and cheeses. An affectation? A fad? I think not. It reflects a passionate interest in how food comes into being. Farmers, in turn, love to see what chefs do with …
If I had the self-discipline of a Zen Master, I could walk out to the garden on a late summer day, pick the most perfect tomato for lunch, then make compost out of all the others too numerous to consume. At heart, I believe in living from moment to moment in the garden, eating only, …
When you pick a fruit or vegetable, it is still a living, breathing thing. It respires, taking oxygen from the air and releasing carbon dioxide. But it can’t live indefinitely. A peach, lettuce or bean, once cut, can no longer make food by means of photosynthesis, and begins to draw down its stored reserves. It …
If compost is the Holy Grail of organic gardening, what’s the holier than thou? Sifted compost. What you want in making perfect mature compost is, of course, organic matter so fully broken down that the original ingredients — whether straw, weeds, kitchen scraps or goat droppings — are no longer recognizable. Finished compost looks like …
In youth, you look for mentors to get you going down a path. Later on, you look to them for a glimpse of where the path eventually leads. As a beginning gardener, I exploded with questions about seeds, soil chemistry or how to predict frost. In midlife, I looked at old gardeners and wondered …
