The Secret Garden

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However, the reason we didn't plant as much in the spring as I thought we were going to is that joy was planning all along to squeeze in a second crop of garden veggies. All the work we did before is paying off, but now we have to do it some more ...all over again ...twice. Okay, how about a second fall crop of corn? "Not unless you can think of some way to get it to ripen real fast and jump into the greenhouse before the first frost comes," Joy says. Sounds like a no.

Garlic... has been grown from bulbs for so long that its seeds aren't viable anymore.

We need to be growing and using thousands of crop species, not a few dozen. —Dr. Carol Deppe, Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties, Little, Brown, 1993

Out in the garden, I hear more good news: More crops in a given area means less space needed, and thus less tilling, weeding, and fertilizing. Joy points that out right away. "And see, this way we can get a second crop of broccoli and cauliflower before the first frost. Don't make a face; you like garlic, right? Around here, we need to plant garlic in the late summer or fall, if we want to harvest it next July." (This rule applies to most regions with a temperate winter, but in colder climates, one can plant garlic very early in the spring. Or wait until fall, mulch the hellebore out of it, and hope for the best.)

Garlic is lovely stuff a food, a medicine, and a spicy complement for tomatoes in cooking. Eat garlic and chew parsley afterwards; you'll live forever and your breath won't smell.

Thinking about garlic, I almost get converted to the idea of an ongoing garden, until Joy mentions rutabagas. "And remember when we planted rutabagas in mid-July? We can have fresh rutabagas all winter, until March or so."

Oh? What happens then? Do they acquire a flavor?

"They go to seed." Thus to make more icky rutabagas. "Well, I think they're delicious," Joy says.

She is not alone. Steve Solomon, proprietor of Territorial Seed Company and author of a series of books about gardening in the maritime Pacific Northwest, calls certain people "corn and tomato gardeners." (Add "strawberries and garlic," and I fit this description.) To make his fall garden yield more nutritionally efficient, Solomon actually learned to like and eat rutabagas, beets, and kohlrabi, changing his diet to match his garden rather than the other way around. Mr. Solomon is an eloquent speaker and an expert gardener. We buy our seeds from Territorial. I admire his books. But he or anyone else can have all the kohlrabi on my plate.

Kohlrabi is a typical root vegetable that can be planted twice in a season, in most parts of the country. The taste is subtle, somewhere between a fresh turnip and a wet telephone book. Did you know it was a Brassica? Do you use the word in conversation? Are you aware that brassicas are members of the mustard family? If so, you are a true gardener. If you enjoy the taste of kohlrabi, grow right ahead and consume them. Count me out.

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