Latchkey Vegetables

Photo courtesy Flickr

My food gardening is casual almost to the point of non-existence. The only conscientious efforts I make are to prevent cycles of disease. Thirty-two years of planting and then forgetting about various edibles have produced several strains of alliums and leafy greens that literally grow themselves.

That’s not a bad result. Collards, chard, tyfon, and corn salad have adapted to the particular conditions on this particular soil. During the recent foul weather, I buried some compost and turned up a whopping, healthy potato in the process. Had we been short of food, that tuber would have been very welcome. It was the offspring of a weary sack that I turned into the heap ten years ago.

Seattle’s recent hard, hard weather is melting away. The turnip greens, parsley, and shallot tops that looked wretched two days ago are frisky and raring to grow. The next clear day I should be able literally to watch them grow, if I can hold still for an hour.

Not everyone is born to garden, but it’s not a bad idea to try, if only to establish a gene bank of edibles for one’s particular turf. If I were starting fresh, I’d contact Tilth and see about fostering heirloom plants. It turns out that the kitchen compost heap that initially was a simple effort to reduce solid waste has become a small-scale automated food factory.

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