Growing Your Own Vegetables: An Encyclopedia of Country Living Guide (20 page)

Watercress

A peppery, sharp-flavored herb that adds zest and tang to salads. Low, leafy clumps require shade and a damp to wet soil, growing best alongside a stream bank with a constant flow of cool, clean water. Watercress (
Nasturtium officinale
) may be grown in containers that receive daily watering, but it will not be as succulent.

USES:
Harvest individual leaves in a cut-and-come-again manner or cut the entire plant at its crown. Watercress is at its best and mildest in cool weather before plants flower. Add to salads, sandwiches, and mayonnaise-based sauces.

CARLA’S LEGACY

C
arla Emery grew up on a sheep ranch in Montana and was educated at Columbia University. In the early 1970s she settled on a farm in northern Idaho, where she wrote the first edition of
The Encyclopedia of Country Living
. Originally entitled
Carla Emery’s Old Fashioned Recipe Book
and produced on a mimeograph machine in her living room, the book launched its author to the forefront of the back-to-the-land movement.

Growing Your Own Vegetables
is the first in a series of single-subject guides drawn from material that appears in
The Encyclopedia of Country Living
, now in its tenth edition. I’m pleased, proud, and delighted to have been asked to author these works for many reasons—not the least of which is my growing fascination with writing about gardening and food, but also because—as my editor put it—I “understand the ethos” of what Carla set out to accomplish when she began so many years ago.

In Seattle during the 1960s and 70s, while Carla was girding herself for society’s collapse, I was riding my Sting-Ray bike, hula-hooping, and bopping to AM radio, blissfully oblivious about the world’s superpowers flexing their nuclear muscles. After college, in a somewhat belated “flower child” period marked by a fierce streak of independence, I purchased one of Carla’s earliest editions. I was determined to bake our bread and grow our food. However, life in the city is forgiving—if something went awry or I got tired, we simply went out to eat! This was hardly the stuff of self-sufficiency, but still reflective of my desire to be a part of the process and an early awareness of a food web growing increasingly industrial and removed from daily life.

Thankfully, at present, the pendulum is swinging the other way. Increasingly our eyes are open to where our food comes from and how it is produced. More and more, clean, healthy food; safe, sustainable growing practices; and fair living conditions are attracting mainstream concern.

Carla Emery remained a tireless advocate of self-sufficiency and environmental stewardship until her death in 2005. Today’s “green living” movement owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to Carla and others like her, who never gave up their pursuit of a good and healthy existence. These contemporary pioneers resuscitated and breathed new life into the skills and traditions of our grandparents and their parents. We may not have more than a tiny patch in the backyard or a few containers on a shyly proportioned patio, but there is still plenty we can grow . . . and plenty more we can learn in the process.

Lorene Edwards Forkner—freelance writer, garden designer, and food enthusiast—revels in the seasonal pleasures and broad scope of gardening in the Pacific Northwest. She is currently at work on additional titles drawn from material found in
The Encyclopedia of Country Living.
Follow her work by visiting her Web site,
PlantedatHome.com
.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

M
any thanks are due to Sasquatch Books and the company’s enduring commitment to providing gardeners—and people who love to eat—with books that inform, inspire, and educate those wishing to dig in the dirt. The important work of Carla Emery and the contents of her
Encyclopedia of Country Living
are sustained by their efforts. Thank you to Gary Luke, my editor at Sasquatch, for inviting me on the adventure.

Thank you to Chris Curtis of the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance who, along with her industrious staff, has done so much to bring fresh food to Seattle neighborhoods, including to my own, wonderful West Seattle farmers market.

Thank you to Matt and Leda Langely of Langely Fine Gardens on Vashon Island for their ardent devotion to providing an amazingly varied (and delicious) list of organic vegetable starts for home growers. From ‘Green Zebra’ tomatoes to tiny alpine strawberries and ‘Cavolo Nero’ kale, my plot—and my plate—is richer for their efforts and their expertise.

A passion for growing our own food is a constant that unites generations and bridges political and economic boundaries. From ornery Bill—my neighborhood farmer, his wheelbarrow laden with produce—to the twinkling eyes of my young son and his bean in a Dixie cup, the magic of cultivating fresh fruits and vegetables is lost on no one. It is exciting to watch the public’s return to the vegetable garden. Actively participating in the creation of an organic, sustainable, lively, and fresh food system is good for our health as well as the well-being of our planet and our communities.

—LEF

APPENDIX:

HOW TO MAXIMIZE YOUR GARDEN’S YIELD

S
uccession planting keeps the garden in constant production. Cool-season crops like peas, spinach, or early lettuce may be planted as soon as the soil is workable in the spring and are harvested before the onset of summer heat. These are followed up by a sowing of warm-season beans or corn, or planted with transplants of tomatoes, peppers, and squash. Either method allows a second crop to be produced in the same space within a single growing season. Areas with mild winters may even follow a warm-season planting with another cool-season crop to produce throughout fall or over winter for an especially early spring harvest the following year.

Cool-season plants thrive in the moist, chilly days of spring and fall to produce leaves, stems, and roots that are harvested while still young and tender. In general, warm-season crops require long, hot, sunny days to flower, fruit, and ripen. Coastal and northern gardens can produce cool-season crops throughout the entire growing season, but may require heat-saving devices and weather protection to produce warm-season crops. Hot summer regions will yield warm-season crops with little additional protection, but may require partial shade or planting in the cooler seasons of spring or fall to produce cool-season crops. Those plants that tolerate both cool and warm weather are resilient and often-times very productive crops that will yield over a very long season.

COOL SEASON PLANTS

WARM SEASON PLANTS

COOL AND WARM SEASON PLANTS

Another way to make a small garden “work bigger” is to take advantage of the space between slower-to-mature vegetables by planting a crop that is quick to mature. For instance, plant lettuce, spinach, arugula, radishes, baby carrots, and beets between rows of the slower-growing winter squash or melons. These “catch crops” are quick to mature before the neighboring vines sprawl to fill in their growing space. Similarly, fall crops of broccoli, kale, and cabbage are easier to get started in the cooler shade beneath mature tomato plants or bean teepees in hotter growing regions.

It should be noted that the success of any “intensive” growing plan is dependant upon adequate soil fertility and good garden management, as well as keeping pests at bay and harvesting crops to keep the plants in production. Knowing the growing conditions specific to your garden and what each plant needs to succeed is the key to getting the most out of your plot—be it large or small. Your reward will be more delicious, fresh, and healthy food.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Emery, Carla,
The Encyclopedia of Country Living
, 10th edition, Seattle, WA: Sasquatch Books, 2008

Jones, Louisa,
The Art of French Vegetable Gardening
, New York: Artisan Publishing, 1995

Lloyd, Christopher,
Gardener Cook
, Minocqua, WI: Willow Creek Press, 1997

Pavord, Anna,
The New Kitchen Garden
, New York: DK Publishing, 1996

Solomon, Steve,
Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades: The Complete Guide to Organic Gardening
, 6th edition, Seattle, WA: Sasquatch Books, 2007

Botanical Interest:
www.botanicalinterests.com

Renee’s Garden Seed:
www.reneesgarden.com

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange:
www.southernexposure.com

Territorial Seed:
www.territorialseed.com

INDEX

A

Acid soil

Alfalfa

Alkaline soil

Amaranth grain

Angelica

Artichokes, globe

Artichokes, Jerusalem

Artificial fertilizers

Arugula

Asian radishes

Asparagus

Asparagus beans

Aubergine

B

Backyard wheat

Balm, lemon

Balsam pears

Bamboo

Basil

Bay

Beans

interplanting

maximizing your garden’s yield

planning your garden

varieties and cultivation

Bee balm

Bee-attracting plants

Beets

Beginning gardeners

Bitter cucumbers

Bitter melons

Black beans

Bodi

Bok choy

Boonchi

Borage

Brionne

Broad beans

Broccoli

cultivation

maximizing your garden’s yield

planning your garden

soil enrichment

Broccoli raab

Brussels sprouts

Buckwheat

Bugs.
See
Insects

Bulbing onions

Bunching onions

Burnet, salad

Bush beans

Bush peas

Butterhead lettuce

C

Cabbage

Calabaza

Calabazilla

Cantaloupe

Cardoon

Carrots

Cassava

Catnip

Cats

Cauliflower

Celeriac

Celery

Chaff

Chamomile

Chard

cultivation

maximizing your garden’s yield

planning your garden

Chayote

Chemical fertilizers

Chervil

Chile peppers

Chinese black radishes

Chinese cabbage

Chinese celery cabbage

Chinese chives

Chinese long bean

Chinese mustard cabbage

Chinese parsley

Chives

Chocho

Christophine

Cilantro

Citron