In the Carlton Garden
Jamie Oliver said something in a recent article about throwing some vegetable seeds in the ground, and that some of it actually grew! I like his low-key approach to gardening, and I agree that it’s fun to plan a little and wing it the rest of the way. For a few crops, such as the potatoes, it was a plant first, ask questions later approach. I can’t get too worked up or attached to any one plant, and I understand that some crops will be sacrificed to little legged and winged creatures. I’m annoyed with the leaf miners making a buffet of the chard, but they are leaving enough for us.
Gardening with a child is especially fun. Pirrie wants to pull up carrots as badly as she wants to open Christmas presents early. Digging for potatoes is a treasure hunt. Sometimes we’re in the garden for thirty minutes before one of us makes a discovery. The first red strawberry or a gigantic green bean. How did we miss it before? Growing food is such a simple act with such big rewards. It makes you wonder why developers and builders and their customers didn’t make kitchen gardens a default feature of every home. A recipe for Green Tomato Jam by Lynne Rossetto Kasper came my way, via the Splendid Table newsletter, at just the right time. She recommends it for topping pancakes and other sweets, but I liked it with roast chicken, and with a great cheddar cheese and crackers.
Fruits of our playtime
