Gardening for Sustenance

In my childhood home in rural Iowa, our basement was always littered with squash. Our freezers were filled with bags of corn and peas and beans, and the laundry room shelves sagged under the weight of canned tomatoes. Potatoes were somewhere out of sight, but I know they were there because we ate them every night. Like most Midwestern farmers during the Reagan years, my family was struggling financially. Mercifully, I was kept blissfully ignorant of that reality, thanks in part to the toil of my parents in our gardens and the many sweltering summer days that my mother spent blanching and canning vegetables in our kitchen. Knowing now the tremendous debt and worry my parents were enduring, I believe that those gardens and the bounty they produced nourished more than just our bodies, because I remember those years as nothing less than idyllic.

Lately, as some seem wont to celebrate the end of the pandemic with a World War, I think that it is worth reminding that even a modest garden can produce enough food to feed a small family for an entire year. Several modest gardens can go a long way toward feeding whole communities. In both Russia and Ukraine, gardens produce an astounding 50% of the agricultural products consumed and over 75% of fruits and vegetables. This speaks to many things, not least of which is a common culture that makes the war in Ukraine all the more heartbreaking. But more importantly it speaks to resilience, and the ability to sustain a population of millions with what is generally considered little more than a hobby in United States. Should our country face genuine economic collapse in the near future, the majority of the population would starve. Russians have been engaged in coordinated local agriculture for centuries. No sanctions, nor even the total devaluation of the currency, can make a dent in a food economy that exists outside of the cash market. We have much to learn from the tradition of dacha gardening. It is perhaps the most successful and sustainable food production system of any industrialized nation.

Though it may seem daunting to grow food for the purpose of putting up, and indeed survival, it is not much more complicated than gardening for summer suppers. First, consider what you like to eat. And then consider worst case scenarios. Rather than freezers full of sweet corn, snap peas and wax beans, consider a pantry full of dent corn, popcorn, soup peas and dry beans. Carefully chosen varieties can still add edible charm to the summer garden while providing winter sustenance. Oaxacan Green Corn not only produces large kernels suitable for making masa, the long ears may be harvested at the milk stage for elotes. Japanese Hulless Popcorn produces lots of little ears that can also be harvested for baby corn as soon as silks appear. Blauwschokkers is an old Dutch soup pea with long climbing vines and lightly fragrant edible bicolor flowers that produce gorgeous purple pods. Trail of Tears is an old and very productive heirloom pole bean that produces lots of tender green beans that can be harvested young for fresh eating and preserving, as well as delicious black beans that make fantastic soup. Blooming Prairie is a beautiful bush bean that features pink flowers and sweet tender purple pods that eventually encase small white beans that make delicious creamy soups and spreads.

Home canning and pickling has a long storied history in America, and it is still the most reliable and economical way to preserve a wide variety of fresh produce in the north, especially for those lacking a cellar or cold basement. Almost anything can be pickled, and the acidity of the brine makes water bath processing an easy and safe alternative to pressure canning. Pickled Conover's Colossal Asparagus with tarragon and foraged ramps is basically spring in a jar. Crisp and sweet Little Finger Carrots were bred in France for especially for canning and pickling, and we love them packed with green Lemon Coriander seeds. Diminutive Mouse Melons, Burr Gherkins and Biquinho Amarelo are charming and unexpected when pickled together in pretty little jars. Buena Mulata produces pods ideal for purple pickled peppers. Pink Icicle Pickles are made from pretty pink Aka Shiso brine and White Icicle Radishes. Mideast Peace Cucumbers are perhaps our favorite for fresh eating, but they also make fabulous pickles, either whole or sliced, with Ambrojia Dill. Tennoji is a Japanese heirloom turnip that produces lots of tops for kimchi and has pure white roots that are actually at their best when pickled. Rio Grande Verde is a determinate green tomatillo that is ideal for making big jars of tart tomatillo salsa. Fleshy green or ripe red Serrano Peppers can be sliced and pickled or made into a piquant sauce. We love pickled beets, especially when made with Flat of Egypt, but both Bull's Blood and Boldor have the added benefit of producing tender tops that can be harvested sparingly before pulling the roots in autumn for processing. Our favorite “green" beans aren't green at all, but the beautiful Meraviglia di Venezia, a pole Romano bean that produces tons of tender delicious flat yellow pods that make fantastic dilly beans. Even succulent greens like Sea Fennel and Golden Purslane can be pickled!

Processing tomatoes is easy, if steamy, and produces a nutritious and versatile ingredient for diverse winter meals. We do not grow nor sell any common canning tomatoes because they are available everywhere and we prefer to grow tomatoes that are equally suitable for fresh use. Téton de Vénus is perhaps the most versatile tomato we offer. It is relatively early, has never suffered from blossom end rot in our gardens, and has fantastic flavor and texture for use in salads and salsa, but also makes a delicious sauce. The tall indeterminate plants are productive over many months here in the Northeast. Purple Calabash is an old tomato that is ribbed and lobed and just delightfully goofy looking but not at all easy to process using traditional techniques. However, when roasted and strained and cooked down it makes superlative sauce and paste, with a flavor that is profoundly different from common paste tomatoes. The tall indeterminate plants are incredibly adaptable and productive in diverse climates. Gardeners with relatively long growing seasons will appreciate Corne de Bouc, and old French heirloom that has exquisite fresh flavor and solid texture, makes a sweet silky sauce, and is ideal for drying. The indeterminate plants are very late to produce and less vigorous and adaptable than we would like. They are one of the few tomatoes that can benefit from a little bit of coddling, and they are worth the effort.

Conserves, jellies and syrups are a great way to preserve fruit for winter use. Champagne and Glaskin's Perpetual Rhubarb are favorites, as are Golden Currants. From seed, these may take a few years to produce enough for processing, but once established they can produce a lot. Musk Strawberries produce many fragrant little fruits that have traditionally been used for wine and preserves. These and other perennial fruits are a great backbone that can be supplemented with unusual annual “fruits" like Mango Melon and d'Espagne a Confiture. If you have access to crab apples, you can make herb jellies easily without the need for pectin. Almost any herb is suitable, although this is a great way to preserve the unique flavors of Mrs. Burns Lemon, Opalescent and Cinnamon Basils, Rock Hyssop, Lavender Sage, and Golden Jubilee Agastache. Jellies and syrups, with or without fruit, are also a great base for some medicinal herbs, such as Hyssop, Willowherb, Marshmallow, Sweet Fennel, and Clary Sage.

Drying vegetables for winter use does not necessarily require a dehydrator. Some Mexican peppers are grown almost exclusively for drying, including Mulato, Guajillo and Catarina. These can be dried successfully in the sun where autumn is hot and dry, or in an oven set to the lowest possible temperature. Géant de Bertoua, a selection of jute also known as molokhia, is traditionally dried for winter use, as is a common alternative, Blue Mallow, whose stunning flowers can likewise be dried. These mucilaginous plants dry easily when bundled and hung in all but the most humid environments. They are highly nutritious and can be tossed into winter soups and stews or crushed and reconstituted for use in a fragrant garlicky sauce with lots of parsley, coriander and cumin. For thoughts on drying diverse herbs and spices for winter use, see our previous discussion of the subject here.

We love winter squash, but small gardens can be overwhelmed by the rampant vines of our most favorite varieties. If you have the space, Marina di Chioggia and Musquée de Provence produce big gorgeous fruits that are delicious, fantastically ornamental, and among the best keepers we know of. Small gardens can host both zucchini and winter squash, sometimes harvested from the same plants! Tromba d'Albenga has beautiful vines that will climb over an arbor or trellis and produces long fruits that can be harvested young for zucchini or allowed to mature into dramatic winter squash with sweet orange flesh and seeds sequested in a bulb on one end. Zapallitos de Tronco are produced on compact bush plants and are popular in Argentina for rellenos, as their young flesh is tender and green, almost like avocado. Allowed to mature, these fruits have sweet orange flesh and can be prepared like kabocha. Zeppelin Delicata is our favorite selection of delicata thanks to its fantastic sweet flavor and excellent keeping qualities. The productive vines are easily trellised.

Less common cucurbit Little Winter Melon is also an excellent keeper. In fact, we have one from the autumn of 2020 that still looks the same as when it was harvested! This nutritious and disease-resistant species has mild white flesh that can be used for almost anything, including curry and candy. The young fuzzy fruits can be eaten like zucchini. Tender new leaves and tendrils can be prepared as greens. In the ancient past, the wax was removed from mature fruits for making candles, much in the same way that we procure wax from Bayberry. The vines are easily trellised and very productive, producing over a dozen fruits per plant in ideal conditions.

Growing your own onions is easy and economical, and though it is getting late in the season to start most from seed, New York Early onions are so vigorous and that they can produce a crop even if they are sown directly into the garden in early spring. These onions, like Rossa di Milano and Dorata di Parma, are also fantastic keepers. Once cured, they can be braided and kept in a cool dry place for many months. Cuisse de Poulet is an old French shallot that has wonderful sweet flavor and keeps for months on the kitchen counter and does just as well for us when sown directly into the garden as it does when we start it early indoors.

Grains that are worth growing even in small gardens include Amaranth, Purple Hulless Barley, Texicoa Sorghum, and Chia. These are easily grown, easily harvested, easily cleaned, and highly nutritious. Tall corn like Abenaki Calais can also serve as a trellis for pole beans like Borlotto Lingua di Fuoco, making sound use of limited space.

If you have a cellar or cold basement, you will likely find that you can keep many root vegetables packed in sand or sawdust through the winter. Rutabagas, Boule d'Or Turnips, Black Spanish Radishes, Craupadine Beets and Paris Market Carrots are reliable choices for winter storage. Rutabagas can be sown in spring, but the others are best sown in late summer and harvested only after several frosts before lopping their tops and placing in storage. Even Brussels Sprouts can be kept in cold storage for weeks or months! Cut down whole plants after several frosts and carefully trim the leaves before placing in a cellar, cold basement or barn. Harvest sprouts from the stems as needed.

Even if you have no cold storage available, some root vegetables can overwinter quite happily in the ground. Parsnips, Parsley Root and Salsify are great examples. These hardy biennials can be grown in a single bed protected by square straw bales through the winter. Simply lift the bales to dig roots as needed. Other interesting and obscure root vegetables that can be harvested through winter include Skirret and Turnip-Rooted Chervil, although they are not nearly so productive or reliable.

Making medicine from the garden is not so complicated as some gardeners may think. Little material is required aside from 100 proof organic vodka, sunflower or olive oil and miscellaneous glass jars and bottles with tight fitting lids, and of course something to label the jars and bottles with. If we could grow only a small selection of medicinal plants in the garden, they would be the following:

Baical Skullcap, which is easy to grow, beautiful in bloom, and possesses profoundly medicinal roots that can be tinctured for use in the treatment of bacterial and viral infection. Calendula ‘Erfurter', whose freshly dried edible flowers can be steeped in oil to produce a soothing salve or salad dressing. Angelica, which is entirely edible and suitable for candies and conserves, has fragrant leaves that can be dried for tea and tincture of the fresh root seems to treat everything. Schizonepeta, whose beautiful fragrant plants produce long bracts suitable for tea and tincture for the treatment of viral infection, potentially even enterovirus infection. Marshmallow, whose roots can be tinctured or dried and pulverized and are especially soothing to the respiratory and alimentary systems. And Elecampane, whose tops contribute substantially to the compost heap, and whose tinctured roots effectively relieve the symptoms of non-oncological respiratory distress.

Given a more expansive landscape, other necessary medicinals would include Motherwort, whose new spring growth is rich in minerals that produce a nourishing herbal vinegar, and whose flowering tops can be dried for use in a tincture that treats cardiac dysfunction as well as symptoms common to post-partum, pre-menstrual, peri-menopausal and menopausal women. Arnica and St. John's Wort, whose flowering tops macerated in oil produce a healing and pain-relieving ointment for external use. Nettles, which are profoundly nourishing as a food and fertilizer and as a tincture that relieves everything from allergies to benign prostatic hyperplasia. And Queen Anne's Lace, whose dried mature seeds have for many millennia been used as a postcoital antifertility agent.

Finally, if you have the space, grow biodynamic fertilizers including Yarrow, Comfrey, Chamomile and Valerian. Sow little Lychnis viscaria everywhere. These plants nourish other plants and will help keep your garden productive year after year. And we cannot sell them to you, but we highly recommend growing garlic, potatoes, apples, and chickens. Sow Flax and extra Calendula to feed the chickens in winter, and sow Good King Henry and Strawberry Spinach around and about their runs.