Cycles of The Garden and Life

Thanksgiving Day was warm, about 70º. Then, in the evening, a north wind began to blow and is still blowing almost 24 hours later.  Today’s high temperature is 39º and tonight the thermometer is expected to plunge to 18º, by far the coldest night this fall.

Realizing that row covers can’t protect the plants from freezing indefinitely, we decided to cash in our chips by harvesting most of the fall garden.

Most of the plants still look pretty healthy, but the radicchio and escarole are frost-bitten on some of their leaf tips. We cut the escarole, which is more advanced and salvagable, but left the radicchio to decay because the heads still haven’t formed.

We’re leaving the kale for now, with a triple row cover. Kale is the most frost-hardy of all the greens we planted this fall. We cut all the arugula, enough to make four nice salads. More arugula is coming on in the cold frame, along with lettuce and spinach, so we should have continuous home-grown salads for another month or more.

Dennis pulled all the turnips. I'm sorry I forgot to harvest the rest of the volunteer cilantro, seen in the lower right of this photo. We've been enjoying it in salads for weeks. 

The turnip tops were a bit weary so Dennis cut them off as a treat for the chickens. They had been hiding in their house most of the day, but the fresh greens brought them out into the sunshine.

Excepting the kale, that about does it for this year’s fall garden, but, as we all know, there is no ending without a beginning, for that is the nature of cycles. Here, indeed, is the beginning of next summer’s harvest: garlic and shallots have sprouted and will grow a bit whenever the winter weather warms. They will take off running in the spring and be ready to harvest by early July.

I’m thankful for the multitudinous cycles of life, none more so than the succession of generations of people. As one crop ages, another is maturing. As one crop dies a new crop is born.

This phenomenon manifests in many ways, one of which is who hosts Thanksgiving. For many years family and friends came here. But this year Oz and Marianne invited us to join them and their family and friends. All I had to do was make two pies. I reveled in seeing the generational cycle move forward one more notch. In future years I will be gone but babies will be crawling on the floor, bearing my genes.

Here’s to the cooks!

And here’s to the eager young and middle-aged hands reaching for that delicious, traditional food!

Copyright 2012 by Shirley Domer

The First Hard Freeze

The average first frost date is October 15, but we coasted through to October 28 without dipping that low. Finally, that day the forecast called for a hard freeze, the temperature falling to 28 degrees. We went into action.

First, I photographed the mums, which I feared would be destroyed by the freezing temperature.

Then we headed to the garden to harvest tomatoes, peppers, zinnias, dill, and cilantro.

Finally, we gathered old blankets and tarps to cover the cabbages, escarole, and kale. By then our fingers were icy so we put on gloves.

I was pretty sure the kale would survive, but a hard freeze of several hours would kill the cabbages, and maybe the escarole. The next morning, when the thermometer rose above 32 degrees, I removed the covers.

The plants were as perky as ever, and now will have several more days to grow. What's more, the cilantro and dill were unscathed.

It was a different story for tomatoes, peppers, basil, marigolds, and zinnias. Toast, every one of them. We're down to the hard-core fall crops now.

Why I Grow Escarole

In July I started seeds of savoy cabbage and broad-leaf escarole and against all logic set the seedlings in the garden in August's blazing heat. That they could survive the heat and insect assaults and grow to maturity before a hard freeze seems improbable -- and yet they do.

This morning Dennis brought a head of escarole in from the garden.

I took down the American Brasserie cookbook and opened it to Tramonto's Sausage, White Bean and Escarole Stew. I had soaked some navy beans overnight and cooked them this morning. I chopped garlic and measured dried New Mexico chiles.

The recipe calls for tomatoes. These late tomatoes from the garden don't look so hot, but they're way better than the grocery store fake tomatoes. (The pimento peppers don't go in the soup. They just happened to be there.)

Kathy and her cousins Linda and Deb had come to visit, so Deb was drafted to chop escarole.

As if that weren't contribution enough, she volunteered to brown the sweet Italian sausage.

After the other ingredients were added and it simmered for a while to swap the juices around, the soup was ready.

Then it was time for lunch. Dennis became the photographer.

The soup was so good that Deb and Linda wanted copies of the recipe. (Kathy already had it.)

Today I couldn't add parsley because the butterfly caterpillars ate it all, and I didn't have Parmesan cheese to sprinkle on. It was still delicious. (The recipe also calls for butter, which isn't needed.)

This is my favorite soup and the sole reason I grow escarole. And I have to add that the soup tasted even better in this superb company.