Featured Article - April 2010

Come to the table: Grow all this and beautify your back yard at the same time with innovative edible landscaping techniques. Plus, enjoy garden-to-table recipes.

SOUTHWEST FLAVOR
Growth Experience

Enjoy the delicious and decorative delights of edible landscaping

Story by Kristen Davenport, photography by Lois Ellen Frank

When I was growing up on the hot plains of southeastern New Mexico, my mother always grew a garden. We had an iris bed along the east wall of the house, and zinnias along the back fence. She grew a snowball bush along the driveway, a rose of Sharon by the mailbox, and rampant four-o’clocks by the water pump.

My favorite part of my mother’s garden, however, was the vegetable garden. Some of my earliest pleasant experiences with food happened out there—such as the times I’d take a miniature Morton salt shaker and eat tomatoes and cucumbers straight off the vine, still warm from the sun.

We also had a grapevine that took over the back fence. It never produced grapes, but it was fun to have it there, because it came from a cutting of a cutting of a vine at a 400-year-old Franciscan monastery in El Paso, planted centuries before by monks who hadn’t wanted to leave behind in Spain their access to wine.

However, the true magic of my childhood was found not in my mother’s garden (sorry, Mom), but in the yard of Colonel and Monnie Norton, an elderly couple who lived next door to our brown brick house in Roswell. In my memory, Colonel Norton was already at least 100 years old when we moved in. I have no memory of who tended his garden, and I don’t know how old he really was, but I do remember that his vines made luscious, juicy grapes.

Colonel Norton’s grape arbor was an enchanted place—with four sides, an elegant gate, a roof completely covered by vines, and a stone floor dappled with sunlight. It was so sturdy that we kids could climb on the roof and lie among the cool vines. I spent many a hot summer day there, in the shade, watching the clouds drift by.

Out in front of the grape arbor, Colonel Norton had an enormous pecan tree—most years, it dropped a hundred pounds of pecans on us—some raspberry bushes, and a circular stone planter with strawberries in a lovely little ring. Up against the wall of their house were more strawberries and some thick clumps of chives. We often came home sucking on chive stalks, which made us stink like onions.

The access point between our yard and the sprawling fairyland of Colonel Norton’s was through a small gap in a currant hedge, one of several that divided the land on our communal cul-de-sac into manageable portions. Most years, the currant hedge produced abundant buckets of berries, and to this day there’s no flavor like that of the earthy, slightly tart currant to send me straight back to age seven. The small opening in the currant hedge where we passed between yards was a tunnel between worlds.

I’m not clear whether we were, technically, allowed back there in the Norton’s side yard. My mom says she worried the elderly Nortons were displeased at all the childish ruckus, but there simply was no way to keep my sisters and me, nor the neighboring Garringer kids, out of that yard. There were gigantic junipers for making tree houses, and a little root cellar where the Garringer boys could tie up the rest of us when playing cops and robbers. (Somehow, the Garringers were always the cops.) We collected currants and nuts and hid them in secret spots.

So perhaps it’s no wonder that, as an adult, I’m often preoccupied with the production and squirreling away of food, or that I have a particular fondness for the way edible plants can create landscapes of magic and beauty. Today, our property outside Taos doesn’t have currant hedges. Instead, our yard is surrounded by long rows of wild plums. Every fall, I find myself canning plums until I’m purple in the face. And now it’s my own kids who are out in the hedges, probably tying up neighbor kids to old apple stumps.

Kitchen gardens are making a comeback in the United States. Every indication is that Americans are more interested in growing their own food than at any time in the past half-century, perhaps since the days of the World War II-era Victory Gardens. As we learn to grow some of our own food again, it’s important to think about growing gardens that can not only feed our bodies, but can also satisfy our desire for beauty and special places. Each of us needs a grape arbor with a dappled stone floor, or a fruiting hedge to create a border between the outside world and our own private kingdom.

An edible landscape should focus, I believe, largely on perennials; i.e., plants that grow back each year without too much fuss. Sure stuff has to be replanted every year (beans, tomatoes, corn), but an easy edible landscape is one you are more likely to learn to use in the kitchen.

When it comes to annuals, which must be planted anew each year, it’s best to start with greens. Tomatoes might be sexy, but greens are just as good, and there’s nothing in my garden I use more regularly for so many months of the year than my greens beds. I can say with certainty there’s no pleasure in life so great as sauntering outside in the evening, spending 15 minutes gathering up bits of this herb and snips of those leaves, and creating from my basket of green things a luscious, tasty salad. In only a very small space, you can grow 10 kinds of greens and 10 kinds of herbs—things to spice up your kitchen and nourish your body.

The large-scale landscape—the grape arbors, fruit hedges, and tree placements—might take several years to work out. Every yard, for instance, should have an apple tree. Admittedly, any kind of big fruit tree is a long-term investment that usually won’t bear fruit for at least the first five years. However, as an old homesteader once said, “The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you never expect to sit.”

Besides, you never know when the neighbor kids might show up to play.

Kristen Davenport lives on a small farm in rural Taos County, where she and her husband grow garlic, potatoes, and other good stuff for farmers markets. She writes mostly about agriculture and food for various magazines.

Asparagus Braised with Peas and Spring Onions
Ring in spring with this garden-fresh side dish.

1 pound asparagus
2 pounds shelling peas
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
5 spring walking onions, or any small,
fresh onion
1 head green garlic, sliced thin
½ cup white wine
1 cup water
sea salt and fresh-ground pepper
a few basil or chervil leaves, or other herbs, finely chopped

If asparagus stalks are thick, trim the bases. If they’re thin, snap them at the breaking point. Slice them diagonally into several pieces, then put them in a bowl of cold water to soak while you shell the peas. Melt butter in a skillet. Add onions and garlic and cook over medium heat until they look like they are starting to fry, then add the wine. Once the wine cooks down, add 1 cup water and the asparagus. Simmer about 7 minutes until asparagus is nearly tender. Add peas, cook about 2 more minutes. Turn off heat, sprinkle with fresh chopped herbs.

Source: Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America’s Farmers’ Markets (2002), by Deborah Madison

Herb & Flower Salad
Perhaps the best thing about growing an edible garden, however small, is the incredibly diverse salads you can create. There’s nothing so delicious as wandering out to the yard, picking a bit of this and a bit of that, and tossing it all together in a bowl. Experiment with different greens—even weedy ones, like lamb’s-quarter and purslane, orach, and amaranth. It’s fun to experiment with flavors, too. Recommended salad herbs include sorrel (tart) and lovage, celery leaves, parsley, basil, marjoram, dill, cilantro, watercress, mint, lemon balm, chives, chervil, salad burnet, fennel, and tarragon. Good flowers to toss in include Johnny Jump Ups or other violets, nasturtiums, the sky-blue borage, or chive flowers. However, unless you really love them, avoid strong-flavored herbs such as hyssop, sage, and the more pungent thymes. Finally, dress the mix with a mild dressing of oil and vinegar. Just mix a pinch of salt with the vinegar, add a bit of oil, then toss the salad in the dressing. This salad does best with mild vinegars such as rice or apple cider—balsamic vinegar can overwhelm it.

2 cups lettuce leaves
2 cups other mixed greens: spinach,
arugula, baby Asian greens, baby kale, wild weedy greens
½ cup purslane, if you have it as a weed
1–2 cups herb leaves
sunflower-seed oil or extra-virgin olive oil
fresh lemon juice or apple-cider vinegar
sea salt
a few blossoms of something lovely on top

Inspiration: Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America’s Farmers’ Markets, by Deborah Madison (Broadway, 2002).

Wild Currant Chutney
You can use any small, tart fruit for this recipe, from your own hedges or picked in the wild: wild plums, gooseberries, currants, apricots—even crabapples.
5 cups currants or gooseberries
2 cups raisins
1½ cups apple juice
2 medium red onions, chopped
1 cup red-wine vinegar
1 cup water
3 tablespoons fresh ginger, peeled, chopped
2 tablespoons yellow-mustard seeds,
freshly ground
1 tablespoon mellow (light-colored) miso
½ teaspoon turmeric, freshly grated or ground
½ teaspoon coriander seed, freshly ground

Combine all ingredients in large saucepan and bring to boil over medium heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, until thickened (about 35 minutes), stirring occasionally. Will keep in fridge 7–10 days.

Source: The Wild Vegetarian Cookbook, by “Wildman” Steve Brill (Harvard Common Press, 2002).