Welcome to Between the Layers! I’m glad you’re here for the weekly recipe and conversation! Finding the green thumb I never knew I had - No. 6All I wanted was a stash of slicing tomatoes, but I got so much more
Many of you have asked me to write about my garden, so here goes… My garden is in my backyard, planted in really good dirt behind this limestone house that my grandfather built in 1928. For nearly 100 years this land has been used for growing things - vegetables for the kitchen table, blackberries my father sold for pocket money, and cut flowers my grandmother adored - daffodils, peonies, a yearly unfolding of colors and fragrances. Growing okra, squash, peas, and hopeFor me, in the past year, my garden grew hope. It cleared my head, taught me patience and problem solving, diverted my attention away from the heavy news toward something positive like noticing the beans were flowering or the blackberries were ready for picking. My son had been in Germany on a study abroad, the borders closed due to Covid, and he needed to get home at once. My granddaughter was reaching new milestones - swinging in the playground, romping in the sprinkler - without me. But the garden consoled me. Tending to those young tomato plants, I could pinch off branches too low to the ground, give them water when they were thirsty, and care for something other than my anxious mind. My garden isn’t a farm - I have no chickens, just a good companion dog named Ella. And I don’t profess to know what my friends Sylvia Ganier and Judy Wright know about farming and growing, but it lets me stay creative, and I’m constantly learning. That’s what I love.
I now grow enough pole beans (Rattlesnake and Kentucky Wonder) to put up plenty in the freezer for the months ahead as well as sweet Lincoln English peas to eat right from the pod like candy. I grow yellow squash to sauté, mash into casserole, or just share. Zucchini? I slice it into ribbons and slather it with olive oil before grilling or grate it into cake batter. I grow okra for roasting, often frying, and freezing for vegetable soups when it gets colder. Each January I sketch out the year’s garden, rotating the tomatoes to where the beans or peas were... it’s a bit of a dance.I have six large beds, a couple as small as a dining room table and others 20-feet long. Blackberries and wildflowers bloom at the back, and all is surrounded by a perimeter of eight-foot plastic mesh deer fence and a girdle of chicken wire along the ground. This security system I’ve rigged with the help of my husband has evolved after tears and fury as moles, rabbits, deer, and squirrels have broken into my sanctuary and my heart. Gardening is about making mistakes and taking action. It’s also about a serious fence. The garden is my teacherI’m self-taught. My father and FIL were backyard gardeners but didn’t share the wisdom because I did not ask. I wasn’t interested in gardening back then. But I’ve learned that to get better at growing it helps to ask a lot of questions. Where have you learned to garden? Who taught you? And I’d go so far as say three questions pretty much sum up who will succeed or not at gardening, provided you have good soil and sun:
It took the move to this old house to finally have the space and adequate full sun for my garden to click. Maybe it’s because my son was an environmental studies major, and I could talk soil with him, but I have developed an interest in soil and think the right ratio of carbon to nitrogen in soil decomposition- geek alert! - is fascinating.
The first few years we tilled the earth each spring because that is what our fathers did, but I’ve gravitated to a lazier no-till, lasagna-style of layered organic farming where the ground stays intact and you only dig the holes you need to plant. In a back bed I layer grass and weed clippings (nitrogen) and place dead leaves and sticks (carbon) on top, layer upon layer, then cover and let them cook down into the soil for the next season. It’s a simple recipe for compost. If a tree comes down in the yard from winds or just from age, we rent a chipper and chip the wood and use this to line the paths between the garden beds. I’ve learned the best soil to work into the earth each spring is what lies underneath those pathways.
Just like in the kitchen when I open the fridge to see what I can pull together for dinner, I’ve learned to tinker and use leftover stuff in my shed in the garden. Because gardening is expensive if you keep buying new supplies each year. How I trellis pole beans came from a book on vertical gardening I found one summer in a book store in New Haven, CT. It appealed to me long before we bought this house. I just liked the architecture of it. The beans crawling to heaven on rough jute twine you’ve zigzagged on wire between three sturdy posts. It was as if these plants could become the hardscape of the garden. I’ve built bamboo teepees around squash and cucumber plants to allow them to lift up off the ground, instead of sprawling out like a hot and tired dog on a cool kitchen floor. But then the moles come and destroy about 80 percent of my okra, and I have no idea why. You would think that my garden sentry, Mr. Owl, would help. But I now have only 10 okra plants that have survived the carnage. They will grow well into September up to six or seven feet tall with lovely pale yellow hibiscus family flowers followed by okra pods.
Okra needs hot weather. If you put it in too early, it slows down. You can look at the weather app on your phone and read the almanac. Temps are in the 80s when you plant and then the next day or two, a cold front moves in - 60s for a solid week - and nature just hit the pause button on your garden.
No doubt, there are good garden years and bad. Gardeners tend to be pretty wise folks about a lot of things, so that wisdom gained by sticking around for the next year must be good for you!
The unmatched, rustic beauty of a gardenGardening doesn’t require any knowledge of art, but it will help develop a deep love of beauty. In 2020 my garden was neat and tidy, a stark contrast to the outside world. I spent hours each day in it weeding and mulching and tending. This year has been different as I’ve been pulled to different projects and places. I’ve let the garden go a bit. But that’s OK, because I think beauty can also be found in the plants you let go to flower and then to seed. The yellow collard flowers, delicate white cilantro blossoms, the carrot flowers that really do resemble Queen Anne’s lace because they are cousins. Why would I want to chop these plants down because they’re past their prime? Cancel them for ageism when they still have something beautiful to contribute? I let them stay and toss blossoms in a salad. And the seeds that follow settle in and over-winter and come up next year (often in random places, yes!) with a brand new cycle of life.
You can tell a healthy garden by all the flowers in bloom for you, the bees, and the butterflies. I plant zinnias, both California giant and Oklahoma (smaller and more button-like). Also coreopsis, something called a “Swamp Daisy” from my friends Beth and Bill, poppies, random but beautiful weeds, and wildflowers, plus my prize, the giant English hollyhocks, which bloom rose or peach and some shade in between.
Even planting a cover crop of clover in cool weather provides color to your garden once the weather warms. Truthfully, for the past two years I’ve planted it late, like in February, and by May it blooms, the garden is crimson, and the bees thank me. They are buzzing all around right now. This year I planted my tomatoes right in the middle of the clover - no till - and as the temperatures dipped a bit the clover seemed to buffer the young plants like a warm sweater. Forever a mother, I think of my garden as a family, a community, and I want to make sure everyone gets along. So tomatoes - I grow Cherokee Purple, Sungold, Mortgage Lifters and Mr. Stripey - go with basil. The cucumber and squash and their tendency to mildew in our humidity stay away from the arugula. The cabbage family and the pests they attract have their own bed. And I have a terrible time thinning plants after I’ve planted them from seed. It seems so cruel. Which means I could never make money farming or attain master gardener status. That’s fine by me. I grow enough to feed our family a summertime full of memories and get a dose of therapy each time I open the garden gate. P.S. A friendly snake & more gardening chatterI’d finished this column and went into the garden to do some trimming around the beds with my Weed Eater. Guess I got a little too close to the peas and out slithered a five-foot rat snake obviously woken from his nap. I shrieked, Ella came running, and the snake darted back into the peas. I’ll admit to being terrified of snakes, but gardening has helped me overcome that as I’ve learned to identify and welcome non-poisonous snakes in my habitat. Plus, I always wear tall green rubber boots - Wellies - in the garden! What’s growing in your garden? Any fears or best advice? More importantly, what do you cook from your garden? Subscriber News: We’ve Got a Winner… and Eggplant Parm!Congratulations to Susan Laurent, May’s subscriber cookbook winner. She receives an autographed copy of my book, American Cookie. (At the end of each month, eyes-closed, I randomly select a subscriber to receive a free cookbook.) This coming Friday I share with subscribers my recipe for Eggplant Parm. I grow eggplant because I will grill them or fry the slices in an egg batter in this wonderful recipe. Not a Subscriber? Don’t miss the Friday recipes and perks (plus the occasional cute baby photo, too). Join us for the full experience! Or give a subscription to Between the Layers to someone you know who loves a great Eggplant Parm and reading about food.
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