Letters From The Farm
Letters From The Farm
BY FARMER JESS
Summer is rounding its final bend. The landscape in the garden is growing heavy with the blooms of a million sunflowers, tomato bushes bearing the weight of an actual ton of tomatoes just waiting to ripen, peppers that offer a refreshing crunch, pumpkin vines stretching from one corner of the garden to the other and everyone’s favorite overachiever, zucchini, producing vegetable matter that is either a marvelous wonder or a terrifying nightmare, as you grow weary of the harvest it requires.
This is the season that gardeners and farmers alike work so hard for. The arrival of what are commonly referred to as “hot crops” is both welcome and celebrated. Hot crops are the veggies that require a good long growing season and plenty of sunshine. Tomatoes, corn, peppers, okra, eggplant, melons and zucchini are among them, generally planted in late spring or early summer. These crops benefit from the heat and the long days of this season, as the high temps develop what many of us would describe as the flavor of summer.
I grew up in my grandmother's garden, where she would grow a sensible amount of vegetables. She and my grandfather planted a variety of things — always elephant garlic, always slicing tomatoes and just enough zucchini to manage. She would hang her garlic from the porch in the backyard, smother her tomatoes in mayonnaise and sprinkle them with salt and pepper. The zucchini would be sauteed to perfection with nothing more than salt to illuminate its creamy texture. Most of these veggies fell on the plate alongside fried chicken, sometimes fresh from the pan or cold from the fridge. My grandmother grew up in a restaurant, and there was nothing that she couldn’t make better than anyone else.
Here on the farm our gardens are far from sensible — I plant as much as the soil can possibly stand without ceasing. We have rows and rows of garlic, over 700 tomatoes this year and at least 20 — believe me I know what you’re thinking — zucchini plants. I, too, hang my garlic in the backyard alongside my onions. I think of my grandma every time I spread mayonnaise across the meaty goodness of a simple red tomato, the only change being the salt that I use for seasoning, substituting her table salt for a kosher variety. I think she would be more than proud of my rendition of her fried chicken.
I also plant an unreasonable amount of sunflowers. This year, I direct-seeded 17 different varieties, and as of now, the garden is full of blooms of every shape, size and color. Interspersed throughout the hot crops, they bring so much beauty but also an element of whimsy to the industrious nature of this season. I believe the garden should bring as much joy as it should nutrition, and the sunflowers bring so much joy to my life.
But back to our friend the zucchini, perhaps the most underappreciated veggie in the garden. We happen to love zucchini here. We add it to salads and use it to create delicious side dishes. I roast it and fry it, grill it and bake it. We make bread and soup and freeze plenty to use throughout the year. I am continually amazed by its ability to produce with free abandon, without any consideration for its farmer and how we are expected to keep up. One of my favorite ways to prepare it is to create a summer lasagna, replacing the noodle with thin rounds of zucchini, the mozzarella with a fresh ricotta and the sauce with a crushed tomato, basil and garlic sauce. The meal brags of summer's goodness.