Kitchen Gardeners International: August 2007 Newsletter
Dear Kitchen Gardener,
I like to think I'm usually a modest person, but there are some moments
in your gardening life when you just have to show off. Take, for
example, this plump, fuzzy peach growing in our frontyard. When I
say "take this peach", I don't mean that literally. Someone
recently confused our small, frontyard pumpkin patch with a
pick-your-own farm by taking my son's giant pumpkin. We're now
referring to said person as the "Grinch Who Stole Halloween".
But back to peaches. My first concern about growing them was not who might take them (I had been warned by my gardening friend, Frank, about raccoons' voracious appetite for peaches), but whether we could grow them at all. Maine is not exactly the world capital for stone fruit. I hesitated between two cold-hardy varieties: the classic "Reliance" and the lesser known "Fingerlakes", opting in the end for the second one. I remember reading the catalogue descriptions for Fingerlakes and being won over by certain phrases like "absolutely drips with peach flavor" and "bright red skin splashed with bursts of yellow."
The American showman, P.T. Barnum, once famously said that "there's a sucker born every minute". Although you might think he was talking about tomato plants in August, he was really referring to people who are easily taken in by what they hear and read. I'll admit that I'm one of those suckers when it comes to seed and nursery catalogues. Everything sounds good to me and I need to exercise restraint not only because of my financial limits, but also my geographic ones. There's only so much I can do on a third of a chilly acre.
I'm a real believer, though, in doing "what I can with what I have" and - to the extent that it's possible - getting others to do the same. This is where showing off or, if you prefer, promotion comes in. While P.T. Barnum is most known for the quote above, he also once quipped “without promotion, something terrible happens... nothing!” If the popularity of kitchen gardening has been waning steadily over the past 50 years in many parts of the world, it could be that we're not promoting it as much and as creatively as we could.
This coming Sunday, August 26th, we have a chance to work together to promote kitchen gardening, a chance that only comes around once a year: International Kitchen Garden Day. As I have said before, you're all welcome to drop by my place Sunday at 2pm for a walking tour of kitchen gardens. You're can marvel at my peaches (if there are any left by then!), my Brussels sprouts and, hopefully, help me diagnose what's plaguing my apple tree.
Better still, why not do some showing off of your own by inviting a few people into your garden or by organizing a spontaneous little food and garden-themed gathering? While you're at, take a few photos or shoot a little bit of video and enter it into our Grow-Off Show-Off contest. Someone is going to win our $500 grand prize. Why not you?
Thanks for doing what you can to promote kitchen gardening,
PS: In last month's newsletter, I promised to share more from my recent trip to France. You've heard the expression "one person's trash is another's treasure", well here is Louise, a market gardener from the Cévennes, showing off her purslane which is either a common garden weed or a deliciously tart and crunchy salad green, depending on your opinion. Louise started bringing bunches of it to market and was surprised to see how many people were interested in buying her "mauvaises herbes" (weeds). She has since started pickling it. If you're looking for another purslane recommendation, it is very popular in India and said to have been Gandhi's favorite vegetable.
Posted by KGI on August 21, 2007 7:33 AM to Kitchen Gardeners International
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