"Plant a radish, get a radish, never any doubt..."

So goes one of the songs from the musical, The Fantastiks. I finally found out what the mystery row of plants was in the garden -- radishes. I guess that is what we planted, since that is what we got.

Radishes are not really my favorite, but I did eat the two home grown that were ready yesterday. I hadn't properly thinned the row since I could not remember what was in that row (I guess that is the result of planting a garden with someone else, I did not do all the planting, nor did I make all the decisions about what to plant). But, I hopefully will be able to harvest a few at a time and make some more room for the rest of them. Maybe it will keep the production a little more even rather than having a row of radishes ready all at one. If that happens, I certainly won't be eating them all, they will be parceled out.

I do remember planting radishes as a kid -- they grew fast, so we kids liked them. Well, we liked to watch them grow and harvest them a little more than we liked eating them. Radishes always seemed to be the vegetable on the holiday relish tray that were left over (unless my Uncle Jim was at the festivities--he seems to be the one who liked radishes). When I was older I liked peeling the red ones into little roses, but that was the extent to which I liked them. Usually we planted the icicle variety when there were radishes in the garden. These radishes, though, are standard, red radishes, fairly mild. I added them to my salad at lunch today without even carving them into roses. And I liked them. It's probably been years since I have intentionally eaten a radish and growing them seemed to give me a good excuse to try them again. A good reminder to try things you think you don't like every once in a while--you might surprise yourself. I sure did.

And that's a good lesson, even for those of us who are no longer kids and think our tastes have settled. Trying something different, even if not new is a good thing. It's especially important when trying to eat ethically since there might be local varieties to try or things that were once part of our diet that we are trying to replace with a better, more ethical, alternative.

I have had this song from The Fantastiks in my head ever since the discovery of the mystery row's crop. It continues, "That's why I love vegetables you know what they're about. Plant a turnip, get a turnip, just you wait and see, that's why I love vegetables you know what they will be ... A man who plants a garden is a very happy man." Ain't that the truth? (Not that I am planting turnips!)

Garden Variety

I still sometimes say "garden variety" when I mean "ordinary." A lot of people do. The expression must come from the days when everyone had a garden and when if you wanted something special, you weren't growing it yourself. Seems like things have come full circle. We now talk "heirloom varieties" when talking about the garden instead -- something special, old, not new-fangled, and not something you are likely to get in the grocery store. Maybe "garden variety" shouldn't be an insult anymore.

If something is garden variety and actually from someone's garden these days it is to be prized, someone's care and attention went into producing it. It is not something to be dismissed.

And when it comes to eating ethically, a garden variety is likely the better choice. We can know more about it and knowledge is power.

Here are some of my "garden varieties." Peppers, yellow squash, lettuce and peas. I will never think of them as lowly again--and I won't compare them with the ordinary.

And when these get a little bigger and ready to harvest, it will surely be some ethical eating!

The First Strawberry

Sunday, when I was watering the garden, I spotted a strawberry almost ready to be picked. Imagine my dismay to find that on Monday, something--a squirrel or a bird or a slug--had gotten to it before I did and left half of it on the ground. But today, back watering the garden over my lunch break, I eyed another berry, not super red, but red enough. I usually am pretty good about sharing the fruits of the garden with the local fauna, but not today. I picked it. Admittedly, it might have benefited from another day in the sun, but I picked it anyway. It smells like a good strawberry, that sweet, bright, smell that they have. And I smile just thinking about it. This is a berry that I grew. And that will make it extra good when I eat it tonight.

Growing something one's self is a counter-cultural act in America today, but is something almost everyone can do. Even if just a pot of herbs on the windowsill. Wendell Berry, long an agricultural advocate, has said we should all grow something to eat. It is economical, local, you know where it came from and there is a great joy of eating something that one nurtured to maturity. And for those of us with broader counter-cultural leanings, there is the sly smile that creeps across the face when eating something completely outside the clutches of big industrial food. I have my best Cheshire Cat grin on right now.

Home Grown and the Farmers Market

I bought yellow summer squash today at the farmers market. They were normal sized--not gigantic. But on my return from being back east and checking on the garden I saw two puny beginnings of yellow squash on what I thought was a zucchini plant. Now, I know that the farmers are putting things in earlier, have more knowledge about their crops and likely have slightly different conditions than I have in the garden. But still, it makes me wonder when will those two yellow squash be ready to pick? And when they are normal sized, not gigantic, will I be willing to pick them then? Or will I wait for the mammoth summer squash that are so often grown in backyard gardens? Only time will tell.

And even so, with those two puny squash weeks away from being picking-worthy, all I can think about is summer squash and onion gratin with fresh bread crumbs and Gruyere cheese. Yum. I'll share the very easy and very forgiving recipe when the squash finally make it. Can't get much more local than the backyard (or community garden in my case) and I hope that offsets the imported cheese!

(P.S. I swear there is a second squash, it is just so puny as to be hidden by a leaf!)

Over leftovers, planting in the garden and the farmers market

Finally, I am finished with the leftovers. Hallelujah! I admit to some strange meals while working through them. But, such is cooking ethically with the leftovers still in the fridge.

So last night I cooked for myself again, not merely making some rice or pasta to fill out the leftovers. I made white pizza with local new spring onions cooked slow in olive oil with salt and pepper. At the very end I put in some arugula from the window sill and some pine nuts to toast. That was put on pizza dough made with local flour in my bread machine and then some shaved Parmesan cheese. Yummy.

But tonight I am at a loss for what to cook. I have some time to mull it over and I am planning on using some of the bounty from stopping at the farmers market this morning, but I am still unsure. I might just stir fry up some of the snap peas and asparagus I got and serve it over pasta.

I have been thinking more about the plants I got at the farmers market today that I put in the ground at the little garden I am working this summer. First priority was a cucumber plant to replace the one that died in the super cold temperatures a week ago. That was actually a taller order than I expected. A few of the farmers who were selling plants either had no cukes or were also lamenting that the colder weather had done them damage. But I eventually found a couple of the "muncher" variety -- thin skins, good for salads. I also picked up a black beauty eggplant, a brandywine tomato, a golden nugget cherry tomato and a roma tomato, plus a pattipan squash--got to love those little UFO shaped summer squash!

I spent about an hour at the garden today under overcast skies and cooler breezes putting in those plants, some onion, carrot and beet seed as well. I gave the garden a good soaking, checked to see a few beans and peas coming up and hoping the lettuce sprouts soon.

This is the part that makes eating ethically fun. It is work to grow things, sure. But the work is so very rewarding--I know that in a while there will be food to pick (there are strawberries that will be ripe, soon!) and I know that food is ethical.

Digging in the Dirt--A Modified Community Garden

I spent some time today digging in the dirt. Some people who know me well find this fascination I have with food and ethical eating to be antithetical to my normal persona when it comes to this one aspect--gardening and digging in the dirt. But I grew up in a family that always had at least a little vegetable garden and some of my earliest summer memories are of chewing on pea pods just picked from the garden and of being handed an aluminum mixing bowl and being told not to come in until it was full of cherry tomatoes. There was the "accidentally" planted watermelon vine in the front lawn and the year we kids somehow convinced Dad to let us plant cantaloupe in New England (we were rewarded with one softball sized, hard as a rock, inedible cantaloupe). And the year Dad accidentally (really accidentally) planted brussel sprouts, not broccoli and my sister called them "stinky little lettuce balls. I don't think she eats them to this day, although I love them now more than I did that summer.

A friend and colleague is moving to Italy for work (yes, poor soul, I know) land of good, local food that he will much enjoy and home of the Slow Food movement. He cares about food and agriculture more than most. So, he started a decent sized vegetable garden in his community (he's a priest) and needed a few brave folks to take over for him this season. He asked me--apartment dweller--if I was up for some digging, planting, weeding, watering and most importantly, harvesting. Being in an apartment without any outside space makes gardening difficult, although I manage to grow quite a bit in the window sills. Still the chance to really garden was appealing. He thought to himself out loud he was surprised he hadn't thought of apartment dwellers earlier when thinking of people to ask.

So, today I spent a few hours digging in the dirt. And I loved it. We thinned some raspberries out and gave the plants to another friend of his. Planted some seed potatoes from another colleague, put in bush beans, peas, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, lettuce and radishes. There is one rogue carrot from last season, a few onions and some chive still sprouting around. The plot will need more carrots and onions, some more herbs, maybe some mustard greens or arugula and I will put in some eggplant.

It is a decent sized plot and some others will be helping with its tending. Which is good, since there will be some days where I won't be able to look in on it. But this is really a good thing for me and eating ethically. It will be good to show my students on those long warm summer afternoons that even in the middle of a college campus in the middle of an urban neighborhood in the middle of the city people can grow food.

And even though some of my friends don't believe I like getting dirty, I like the physical work of it. The sun and warm breezes, the smell of the earth, the little bit of color on my face from the sun, and the promise that a small green plant has for the future.

I met some nice people and look forward to working with a few of them and the others I will soon meet on this little garden plot. The plants growing there in their slightly neat rows and areas are like a community themselves, hemmed in by a wall here, a lawn there, a flower garden on the other sides. We people who will work this garden will hopefully be a sort of community, too. I hope to share with them my love of ethical eating, and hope to share some eating of what is produced with them. Ah, what the summer holds. I smile to myself.

(The garden is a bit to the west of the red sculpture in the picture. More pictures to come!)