A SOUTHERN TREAT
A Good Site
Okra, like artichokes and dark beer, evokes from people either praise or disgust, rarely something in between. A pot of stewed okra, tomatoes, and onions sends me into creole heaven, yet makes my brother gag. I say the mucilaginous quality of okra adds “body” to a dish; he says okra is “slimy.”
This season I’m reveling in a bumper crop of okra. Such a crop would hardly be worth noting if I gardened south of the Mason-Dixon line, where okra plants grow to be the size of small trees! Growing okra up here in the Hudson Valley is somewhat of a challenge because the plants begin to shiver when temperatures drop into the 50s — not uncommon even for a midsummer night in my garden.
In spite of a good bit of hot weather this summer (1.3°F above the 127 year average), I like to think I had a hand in this season’s success with okra. And the first okra-righteous thing I did was to choose for my planting a good site: the hottest and sunniest spot in my garden.
Lack of sunlight used to be a problem when my garden beds ran east and west; tall plants, such as popcorn, on ann adjacent bed to the south of the okra bed would shade the okra. Read more
THE “W” WORD
Onward!
I don’t want to sound like a scolding parent, but have you been paying attention to your garden? Late summer weather may not inspire any more gardening activity than reaching — among the weeds, perhaps? — for a juicy tomato. But onward: There is work to be done!
About those weeds. Wait! Don’t close your eyes and stop reading (like a reprimanded child) just because I mentioned weeds. Please hear me out.
Weeds, left now to their own devices, are going to become worse troublemakers later. Annual weeds like lamb’s-quarters and purslane are dropping their seeds, sowing them for next spring. You presumably killed all perennial weeds with this season’s enthusiastic beginnings, but the roots of young perennial weeds are trying to find a home. Autumn’s cool, moist weather is just what horse nettle, bindweed, yellow and creeping woodsorrel, and other perennial weeds need to become firmly entrenched in your garden. Read more
RIPE FOR THE PICKING, BUT WHEN?
Subtle Messaging
I grow a kind of strawberry — the white alpine strawberry (Fragaria vesca) — whose flavor, when it is fully ripe, is an ambrosial melding of strawberry and pineapple. But if it’s even slightly underripe, it tastes like cotton soaked in lemon juice. How do I know when to pick a white strawberry? One way is with my nose, by the delectable aroma of a fully ripe fruit. The seeds also darken when the fruit is ripe.
Other types of fruits have their own ways of signaling when they are ripe, and to taste at their best, they must also be harvested at just the right moment. Many people mistakenly believe that any fruit can be picked underripe, then ripened on a kitchen counter. Softening does occur, and perhaps some changes in color and sweetness, but, with few exceptions, fruit picked underripe is no match for fruit fully ripened on the plant. That softening and sweetening is more akin to incipient rot than ripening. Read more
