Dear Kitchen Gardener,

Happy autumn or spring, depending on where you are in this big gardening world of ours. Today has a crisp ,fall-like feel to it in my neck of the woods with the temperature barely topping 60 degrees (16 C), if at all. Looking out my home office window towards my backyard, I see many of the telltale signs of a New England autumn: apples hanging from the tree, corn stalks, onions, pumpkins and winter squash curing in the sun, and the uppermost leaves of our white birch tree starting to change.

It is hard to believe that less than a month ago that same backyard space was filled Kitchen Garden Day (KGD) revelers thinking summer thoughts (to ward off the rain drops in our case) and enjoying the fragrant and juicy flavors of the season via a tomato tasting party. We had a good turnout of 30 people who toured 3 kitchen gardens in our neighborhood. Our celebration (see pictures here) was just one of many that took place.  I want to share one KGD report I received by e-mail from Kirsty McKinnon of Norway (part of whose Kitchen Garden Day feast is captured in the photo above):

"Kitchen Garden Day is over for this year. A great success according to ourselves! The weather was beautiful. More visitors than we had hoped for came and joined us to celebrate the Kitchen Garden. Everyone was delighted when invited to taste the various dishes we had prepared for the Kitchen Garden feast. We also displayed a family medicine chest made from ingredients from the garden and talked about medicinal herbs and their uses in our respective countries. Plants for vegetable dying were also exhibited. And of course we wandered in the garden and visitors were invited to collect seeds. We are very much inspired to continue the work and look forward to next year’s Kitchen Garden Day."

Well, Kirsty, your report and your beautiful photos have "inspired us back" to make next year's celebration even better. Please mark your calendars already for next year's party on August 26, 2007. My highly-biased opinion as a KGD event organizer is that the day offers a unique opportunity for local communities to gather around home-grown and home-made foods and that participants are delighted to peek into other people's gardens. As you may already know, we received some great press coverage this year and our sign campaign is off to a promising start.  We're really making a difference in how people think about their food, so please keep it up and help us spread the word.

On that bright note, I had better wrap things up as my boys will soon be home from school and we'll need to start thinking about what's on the menu for dinner. Tonight is soccer night for my youngest son, so we'll need to come up with something fast and satisfying. We made up our yearly batch of freezer pesto a couple weeks back so that's always an option, but it seems a shame to tap into those winter reserves when there are fresh tomatoes and basil still coming out of the garden. Plus, we've got red peppers, zucchini and eggplant ready for harvesting so maybe it'll be a quick-and-dirty ratatouille served over rice or couscous? And then there are the Kennebec potatoes I dug yesterday..and the broccoli.

Anyway, I'll figure it out. This is one of those "good problems" we kitchen gardeners face at this time of the year.

All the best to you,