Now, to the one thing that really develops passion for so many—harvesting the dividend from your potager garden. This is not only a place for growth and creation; this is a place for inspiration, a tapestry of vegetables, herbs, and flowers intermingling together with a certain purpose. Better said, this is painting with plants!
The beauty of a potager garden, of course, is that it’s a two-for-one deal—delighting both the eye and the plate. Sometimes, though, getting there can be about as finicky as trying to put a cat into a bath. Here are some ways to get the best from your crop and do it with a minimum of fuss:
Timing in the potager is a little like comedy—first, you get it just right, and the second you harvest too early, you’re shorting those veggies on all of their possible pizzazz.
If you wait too long, you may just have something resembling a vegetable relic. The trick is to harvest these either very early in the morning when it’s chillier or in the evening when things cool down. Leaves are perkier, the air is crisper, and as a value-added bonus, insects are not too fond of the chilly hours.
Observe your plants—they will tell you, even though not in words, through signs. Carrots would tell, “Pull me now,” as it peeps the top of its crown above the soil like some kid’s head over the fence. As colors are just flapping, tomatoes would say, “I’m ripe, take me!”
For leafy greens, here’s a simple test: tug gently. When the leaves resist, it’s picking time. Go easy, invite them in to dinner. And with herbs such as basil or thyme, regular pruning says, “Keep growing,” a lot like getting a haircut. Mornings are good, after the dew has dried but well before noon, when essential oils peak. Ever wondered why some garden veggies seem more like rebels, growing in every which direction? It’s a tale as old as time!
The romantic disorder of the potager suggests that planting is an art somewhat at the mercy of chance: zucchinis may sprawl in every direction, while cucumbers mask their treasure under a riot of leaves. You must feel inquisitive and forbearing. It’s playing hide-and-seek with vegetables.
So don’t be afraid of the squishy or the wrinkled! More often than not, ugly doesn’t win beauty pageants, but ugly can more often than not be flavor bombs. Your nose, your touch, your eyes—all of those senses are going to come alive. It is about taste, but it is about the experience, too. Being gentle with your harvest is just like carrying that fragile sculpture from the museum. Scrub the root vegetables, but leave all the greens fresh to dinner, and if there are piles of pea pods, remember how your granny taught you how to snap and pop those into a waiting bowl while you chat with your friend. Seasonal savvy plays in, too—that whole “There’s a time and a place for everything”? Cabbage is a winter kiss, and beans crave the hot lips of summer.
Obey their whims, and they shall repay tenfold. And flowers in the potager? More than pretty petals, they’re defenders, distracting the good bugs in to munch on the bad ones.
Preserving the Bounty: Keeping Your Potager Garden Fresh
Ever stand in your potager garden, look around, and say to yourself, “Man, how do I keep this goodness fresh?” We all have.
But it isn’t until the season is fully in riot—the colors and flavors of your garden, too—that the real hurdle commences: the attempt at saving such plenty can, all too often, become as futile as the trying to catch smoke with the naked hand. The fact is, yes, one can, with a bit of know-how and by taking a whole smorgasbord of methods involved. Get funky with root cellaring.
It’s the best-kept secret that nature has in store for keeping carrots, potatoes, and all kinds of garden treasures until the end. My grandmom used to say, “If you cannot eat it now, bury it.” That is what root cellaring is about, though not exactly the burying part.
Let vegetables just chill out in some cool, dark place with no flirtatious glances of the sun, and they really last a good while longer. It is like sending them to some spa for an extended vacation. Next after that would have to be the cannery—the beauty in that sucking sound of a popped-open jar right back to summer. Bottling sunlight is the preservation of jam, pickles, or chutney in a certain way.
The trick is sterile jars and fresh food with tightly sealed lids. It can be a bit untidy to do, but what a reward it gets. Of all types, mostly I like the sweet fragrance of strawberry preserves on a cold winter day. Now, freezing.
Ah, freezing: it sounds old as heck, but really works as an unsung hero in the keeping-things-fresh department. Got more peas than time? Then bag ’em and tag ’em for another day. Of course, not everything is a fan of the cold treatment. Tomatoes are total divas that require blanching first. Ever tried to freeze pallets of herbs, only to fish out wilted grief from the freezer abyss? The ice cube tray does wonders: just fill each slot with the chopped herbs, adding a bit of water or olive oil, and you will have flavor bombs ready to explode in any dish. Drying actually sounds like some kind of biblical odyssey across the desert, but in all honesty, it’s just so darn convenient. Your harvest is either slow-dried or run through some kind of dehydrator, and it becomes this harvest of snacks or ingredients that have stellar shelf life: dried-in tomatoes, apple chips, or even garlic—just convenient, delicious little nuggets of gold straight from the garden.
Fermentation may bring to mind weird high-school science experiments, but this really old technology is hippy hot for a reason: It’s the fairy tale-like transformation of humble cabbage into pungent sauerkraut, of cucumbers into crunchy pickles—all that’s required is a jar full of them and a pinch of salt, besides some patience. And if all that were not enough, then there are probiotics—the cherry on this healthy sundae. If that is not enough, just try vacuum-sealing—this virtual science fiction for food preservation that will give you double the freezer life from your vegetables. You literally put your vegetables into hibernation-ready mode to spring into life at will.
