Now is when you should start your fall and winter Kitchen Garden.

Truly, there are some things that should be planted in May or June for fall harvesting because those crops take a long time to mature (like celeriac, parsnip, the perennial sunchokes, winter cabbages, winter leeks, Brussels sprouts and a few other things). But they are so many vegetables that can be planted now (and over the next few weeks) for wonderful fresh eating in the fall & winter.

Yes, I know: it’s hot (although not so much here this year, we have not had 100 ° F weather like last year); the gnats are terrible; it’s dry and, yes, it IS (some) work. But what are you going to do in mid-October after you’ve been scrounging around for your last green tomatoes before frost spoils them, wondering if you’ll manage to ripen them inside (don’t you want to eat something else, by then, anyway?) and getting in the winter squashes (you planted winter squash – right?)… With the rapidly declining day length, the sharpening of the air that’s telling you that winter is coming, the birds going south and the cry of the geese overhead, with the nights in the low 40’s, the smell of smoke from the woodstove hanging in the moist air, everything green and fresh is going to be precious, whether a delicate lettuce for a quick salad lunch, or the more robust Lacinata kale – that darling of Tuscan white bean, sausage and kale soup – , or a young, fresh, crisp radish with a little salt & butter. Or a sweet baby carrot, or a bunch of little white turnips to sautée with some whole cumin seeds, or a bouquet of frost-sweetened arugula for the grilled pizza, or some young leeks for braising or… or.. or… you get the idea, I hope (I, on the other hand, am getting hungry – again.) Read more