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Over the years, some items have fallen off my planting list, and new ones have been added.
A friend recently asked me a question that got me thinking: Now that we’re nearing the end of the gardening season, have you ever given serious thought to what’s worth the effort, and what’s not? I never had, though certainly over the years some items have fallen off my planting list, and new ones have been added. To help focus my thinking on this question, I spoke to a few Vineyard gardening friends.
Diana Barrett, a seasonal up-Islander, pointed out that what’s worth growing depends in part on how long you’re here. In other words, what’s your timeframe? If you leave the Island at the end of Labor Day weekend, or if you’re doing the “Vineyard Shuffle,” and you move back into your winter digs in early September, you shouldn’t plant winter squash, which doesn’t mature until mid-autumn. If you don’t arrive until July, it’s generally too late to plant lettuce, cilantro, and arugula, which bolt in hot temperatures. (Unless you get creative, like Diana, who grew them successfully all summer long beneath a tunnel covered in black gardening cloth. I’ve had pretty good luck planting them in a section of my garden that gets a lot of shade.)
Cindy Kane of Vineyard Haven noted that one’s particular garden conditions play a role. “I think I’m going to have to break up with tomatoes,” she said with resignation. “My garden just doesn’t get enough sun for them to grow well.” And, of course, size matters. Cindy’s fenced garden (fenced to keep out deer and rabbits) has limited space, so plants like melons and winter squashes — vines that spread voraciously — would take up more precious terrain than they’re worth. And very few home gardeners have enough space to make growing corn worthwhile, much as we all love Island-grown corn.
I’d put soil quality in the category of “garden conditions.” I’ve tried growing two vegetables I love — fennel and Brussels sprouts — and had poor results, and I’m pretty sure my soil is to blame. (Note to self: do soil testing next year.) My Brussels sprouts plants grew very tall, but the sprouts themselves were teensy — not much larger than a raspberry. Considering the hefty amount of space they occupy, I decided that Brussels sprouts, most definitely, were not worth the trouble. My attempts at fennel yielded similarly scrawny results. But since I’ve noticed at the farmers’ markets that even the professionals’ fennel is small, I’m wondering whether this is just not a vegetable that thrives in Island growing conditions — hence: not worth it in my book.
Pests are another factor that determines a gardener’s choices. I, for example, have given up on potatoes, because no matter what I tried, they always wound up full of worm tunnels. Cindy grows potatoes in containers to solve this problem (using fresh, pest-free soil), and I may try that next year. Or maybe I’ll just keep doing what I’ve been doing: buying potatoes (and corn) from the Island’s many wonderful farms.
Another gardening friend, Peter Kramer of Chilmark, stopped growing zucchini and summer squash, because year after year, they were killed off by squash borers, which are notoriously hard to eradicate. He’s had better success with a Korean summer squash hybrid whose more solid stem is resistant to borers. Peter had one of the characters in his novel Death of the Great Man explain that this squash variety is actually of a different species (cucurbita moschata) from that to which zucchini and yellow summer squash belong (cucurbita pepo).
Among animal pests, squirrels have been my biggest bane. After several years of them scaling my deer fence and beating me to every single berry, I was just about ready to — as Cindy put it — break up with my strawberry patch. But then I had the idea of putting plastic netting over the top of my garden, and presto! Strawberries for the first time in forever. As a side benefit, the “roof” keeps out the birds who eat the raspberries and poke holes in the tomatoes.
Of course, the largest Island animal threat to a garden is the deer. Deer are so overpopulated and hungry on Martha’s Vineyard that they now eat things they supposedly don’t like. Peter Kramer gave up planting purportedly deer-proof garlic outside of his garden fence after the deer began gobbling it down. Cindy has solved this problem by scattering her garlic through flower beds full of other plants that the deer definitely don’t eat, like sage.
Convenience is a driving force in determining what many gardeners decide to plant. If, like Diana, you’re at least a 20-minute drive from the nearest major grocery store, you’re always going to want to grow the things that will spare you a last-minute trip to Cronig’s. How great is it, when you suddenly realize that the dish you’re making for dinner calls for a handful of chopped parsley, or a leek, or some carrots, to be able to just walk outside and pick what you need? And some plants, like garlic, which keeps well for many months in a cool, dry place, offer this convenience for a good part of the year.
It may seem obvious, but the most important factor in determining what’s worth growing in your garden is what you like to eat. “You need to garden the way you actually eat, not the way you think you want to eat,” Diana says. She notes that the idea of pickling cucumbers appealed to her, but then she discovered that she and her husband, Bob, don’t really eat pickles. (My husband and I do eat pickles, but I’m not sure how we’ll make it through all the jars I put up this year when my cucumber yield went through the roof.) Diana and Bob love soup, though, and they’ve just used a bumper crop of carrots to make and freeze several batches of carrot-ginger bisque.
Cindy loves all kinds of nutritious greens, so kale is a must for her. Kale is prone to decimation by cabbage moth caterpillars, so spraying it with Captain Jack’s Dead Bug (an organic compound that’s completely safe if you’re not a caterpillar) is necessary as soon as you notice the first signs of leaf chewing, which can happen several times a summer. But this effort is well worth it, since kale continues growing through the fall and well into the winter. Cindy also uses herbs liberally, sautéeing large handfuls to spread on pizzas, chicken, or cooked vegetables. Many herbs, including sage, oregano, and chives (three of Cindy’s favorites) are perennials, meaning that they come back year after year with no further effort required from the gardener, other than perhaps a little fertilizing. For this reason (among others), I find herbs, which are more nutrient-dense than most vegetables, most definitely worth growing.
Yes, gardening is a lot of work, and yes, there are always spectacular, generally unpredictable failures due to bugs, blights, animals, weather, and other factors. But the fact is: everything that comes right out of a vegetable garden tastes far superior to what you buy in a grocery store, so in that sense, it’s all worth it.
Also worth it to me is any fruit, vegetable, or herb that can be preserved for use during the winter. Garlic, onions, and winter squashes hold up nicely when stored in my cool basement. Onions last for several months, garlic and winter squashes often almost until the next year’s crop is ready to be harvested. I dry my own oregano for winter use, and my freezer is generally well-stocked with basil pesto. When my raspberry patch gets a bit bigger, I envision freezing some of its yield. I’m also partial to legumes — sugar snap peas, shelling peas, lima beans, string beans, and edamame — that can be parboiled and frozen. As I write this, my string bean vines (I plant pole beans for easier picking) are putting out beans at an alarming rate. I’ve been freezing them, but also serving them for supper nearly nightly. One of my favorite ways to prepare them comes from seasonal Aquinnah resident Carol Gilligan, whose cooking I profiled in this magazine last year. I’ve included the recipe here.
Finally, I’ve discovered that embracing accidents in the garden can be worth it. Last year, a six-pack of seedlings labeled “zucchini” turned out to be patty pan squash, and my initial dismay soon turned into delight as I discovered that patty pans are delicious and less prone than zucchini to getting mushy when cooked. Every year, I spot accidental seedlings emerging from last year’s plants gone to seed — things like tatsoi, bok choi, arugula, peppers, and tomatoes. I carefully dig them up and move them to where I want them; I consider them a nice freebie. Hybrid tomato seeds don’t seed true to type, but rather revert to some ancestral tomato in their lineage — most often a plant that yields generous clusters of small, red cherry tomatoes that are delicious and always still producing vigorously well after their larger cousins have died off. I’m grateful to have these volunteers every year.
Yes, gardening is a lot of work, and yes, there are always spectacular, generally unpredictable failures due to bugs, blights, animals, weather, and other factors. “Every year,” Diana says, “I have more and more respect and empathy for farmers, whose living depends on their gardens.” But the fact is: everything that comes right out of a vegetable garden tastes far superior to what you buy in a grocery store, so in that sense, it’s all worth it.
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RECIPE: Carol Gilligan’s String Beans
- Yield: Serves 4 as a side dish 1x
Description
Carol regularly offers a heaping plate of these beans to guests as part of her appetizer spread. She doesn’t use a written recipe, but I’ve created one here based on what she told me to do. Use a strong, flavorful olive oil, but use it sparingly. Everybody loves these beans!
Ingredients
- Four large handfuls of fresh string beans, stems removed
- 1/2 of a large, juicy lemon
- A generous teaspoon of table salt
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil and throw in the beans. Cook for 1-2 minutes; they should be slightly cooked but still crisp and squeaky when you bite into them. Drain the beans in a colander and run cold water over them to stop further cooking.
- Squeeze the half a lemon into a bowl large enough to toss the beans in. Add the salt and stir vigorously until it has mostly dissolved into the juice. Add the beans to the bowl and toss well to coat them evenly with the salty lemon juice. Drizzle a little olive oil onto the beans (one or two teaspoons at most), and toss again to spread the oil around.
- Serve the beans directly from the bowl, or mound them on a plate or platter.
