Eating With the Seasons
Posted in Learning Experiences on February 9 2010, by Plant Talk
Author of The Garden Primer Encourages Growing Food Year-Round
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Barbara Damrosch, author of the recently revised The Garden Primer, writes a weekly column for The Washington Post and has designed display food gardens at Stone Barns Center in Westchester. She will discuss growing food year-round as part of the From the Ground Up Lecture Series on February 18. |
The anticipation of flavor is the best appetite stimulant, as all kitchen gardeners know. It’s one thing to look forward to a meal, or a favorite dish. But a favorite crop in the ground is even more tantalizing.
The global supermarket cornucopia dulls the appetite by making every food available. Cooks can make any recipe, at any time, just by tossing ingredients into a cart. As a result, they rarely know seasonal tastes like those of garden peas, sown in early spring and harvested after long anticipation, bursting with sweetness as only fresh-picked peas can. Or the juiciness of the first red, ripe tomato, warm on the vine. Or the first corn, the first melon, the zing of sprightly fall greens such as arugula or mache.
Luxury is not having every food; it’s having each food at its best moment.
My husband, Eliot Coleman, and I grow food year-round in snowy Maine, with a few simple garden devices to help us along, such as cold frames and hoop structures to cover plants in the cold season. But the most important trick is to choose the right crops for each season.
Really, just a handful of popular vegetables grow best in heat: fruiting crops such as cucumber, corn, tomato, pepper, and eggplant. Most greens do far better when it’s cool, and their flavor improves, too. The homegrown spinach in our unheated greenhouse right now is unimaginably sweet, mild, and tender. The squash we have grown, naturally suited to winter storage, makes rich, velvety soups. Our carrots, still in the ground under a cold frame, are like candy.
This spring when you plant your garden, plan it like one long, leisurely meal with 365 courses, each one more satisfying than the last.
Barbara Damrosch will discuss growing food year-round as part of From the Ground Up: Gardens Re-Imagined on Thursday, February 18, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. in the Arthur and Janet Ross Lecture Hall. Register early as seating is limited.
