Our 25th Garden
Part III
by Rick Brown

The Harvest

Needless to say…the past several weeks have seen our 25th garden winding down. Our experiment with sunflower seedlings proved to be quite a success, although next year we plan to begin the seedlings earlier so we can enjoy sunflowers in bloom before the garden is on the wane. Live and learn. And sunflower seed devouring squirrels and birds be damned.

Outside of the ornamental the garden was a huge benefit for the coming long, gray winter nights. This year was the first time we ever planted beets and they not only proved to be a wonderful addition but a beautiful plant as well. The weeding, harvesting…most all of the toiling…..is complete for yet another year.

The Bounty

The 25th garden was such a surprising enterprise that I had to go out and purchase a second small freezer for our basement!! Of course this minimizes savings. But neither Yvonne nor I plant a garden in the hopes of saving a lot of moola. Rather, it’s the fact that I can pull a batch of Italian red sauce from the freezer…let it thaw…and make anything from linguini with mussels to vegetarian lasagna. Below is a complete list of our 2004 harvest and preparation.

Italian Red Sauce 14 batches
Sauce Puttanesa (pureed red sauce with anchovies) 4 batches
Marinara with Olives and Artichokes 2 batches
Italian Red Sauce with Fresh Herbs 2 batches
Beet Juice 1 batch
Borscht 6 dinners worth (for 4)
Frozen Beets 7 lbs.
Basil Leaves (for pizza and pesto) 28 dinners worth

Now that’s a lot of dinners waiting to happen. And you have to take into account that we have enjoyed at least a meal or two this summer from almost each of the above listed batches. Until there’s a hard frost there may still be basil to pick. And the bowl of green tomatoes in the kitchen may turn into yet another meal. But I am going to have to figure out what to do with 7 pounds of frozen beets. I mean…I like borscht. But I don’t know about every week for half a year!!

I may till the plants under if the weather holds out. Or I might just leave the brown remnants of summer peak through the snow…a reminder of the coming rebirth…and my date next spring with good old Allis.