The garden’s main crop: joy

Each spring my family and I faithfully plant our small little patch of yard designated for vegetables. I always find it a hopeful project. Barring floods, droughts, personal injury, relocation or disaster of any kind, I am promising my little patch of earth that I will care for it gently and lovingly until fall, when it will feed me.

Harvest time has arrived, and as usual it has caught me by surprise. I unexpectedly spent the frantic days leading up to a recent vacation turning as many apricots as I could into jam. As suspected, by the time we came home some busy little animal, or animals, had plucked the rest of the ripe fruit off the tree, scattering the bald pits around my lawn. As this is our first spring in Grand Coulee, I was childishly enthusiastic about all the fruit on our inherited apricot tree. It was a lovely surprise, and one that will supply something sweet all winter.

The personal vegetable garden has recently made a comeback with young families across America. Not since our country was urged to plant Victory Gardens during World War II has there been such a surge in locally grown produce. Perhaps it is some combination of both economic and environmental disaster that has inspired us to think locally. Farmers markets dot main streets all across the country, offering easy access to fresh, locally grown produce for those who don’t have the time, space, or inclination to plant a garden of their own. Grand Coulee has recently begun a summer Saturday Market where locals can gather to buy fresh produce, locally made products and catch up with their neighbors.

The key to a successful vegetable garden is to plant only foods that you actually want to eat. The promise of a lush red tomato will not entice you out to weed or fertilize your garden if you don’t like tomatoes and can’t find the time to turn them into tomato sauce. I like to keep it simple. Tomatoes, onions, garlic, basil, and zucchini are always in our garden. Rotating crops have been known to include summer squash, oregano, parsley, carrots, pumpkin, cilantro, peppers (both hot and sweet), and the occasional jalapeno. On any given day in late summer, our kitchen is awash with the potent scents of simmering tomato sauce and spicy pesto, canned or frozen for the winter.

Preserving what you have grown in your garden can seem like a daunting task, but it’s only as big of a project as you’d like it to be. Freezing is often an easier solution than canning, although freezing uses substantially more energy as you have to take up valuable freezer space for your preserved foods. Recipes abound on the Internet for canned tomato sauce and frozen pesto, zucchini bread and jams. Start small. Eat everything you grow the first season. Try planting one tomato plant in a pot and see what it is like to care for. A warning: eating a tomato fresh off the vine will taint your image of store-bought tomatoes for the rest of your life!

This year, my daughter has established an extreme fondness for our cherry tomato plant. We usually just plant one because each cherry tomato plant can reap an enormous amount of tomatoes. But this year, she’s the only one in our family to have sampled any at all. She gets to them first thing in the morning; while my brain is still focused on coffee and breakfast, she’s out the door wondering which “baby tomato” is ready to eat. If I wasn’t committed to a vegetable garden before this summer, I am now. Being able to offer my daughter food right out of our backyard is enormously satisfying.

I take a delightful joy out of preserving the foods we grow in our garden. Opening a jar of tomato sauce made from our tomatoes to sprinkle on spaghetti in the darkness of winter somehow makes this simple meal more enjoyable. As I open the jar I am also reminded of the late summer days of harvesting and preserving and look forward to all the fun we will have planting, tending, and harvesting next year’s garden.

Previously published in "The Star," Grand Coulee, Washington. September 7, 2011