Seasonality for the Common or Garden Cook

A major benefit of growing your own food is that it brings you closer to natural seasonality - for me that being the sort defined by things appearing ready to eat in the kitchen garden, rather than the new series of some reality TV programme starring the tattooed brain dead, or the first fixture of a sporting calendar. It is a more nuanced seasonality than Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn (I actually prefer the more descriptive word Fall, once general in Britain).


Among the more notable dates of the produce seasons is New Potato Day, when the very first tiny new spuds are rushed from soil to pot with the minimum delay between. I've noted elsewhere here, I'm certain, that there is no comparison between such sprint-to-table potatoes and even the very best the shops or market can provide. It is - for me at least - interesting that the gardener can influence seasonality in this regard: we grew two huge black plastic potfuls (filled with our home-made compost) of spuds in a greenhouse, so that New Spud Day was at the very end of May, while the ones grown in the kitchen garden proper were only ready in the second half of June. An admission: the flavour of the ones grown in the kitchen garden was notably superior.


Other such events are First Strawberry Day, and First Courgette Day - that latter a week ago, though it was first two courgettes day, as two were ready together (used in a veggie sauce for pasta). There are less joyous seasonal dividers too, such as when we say goodbye to the last of many crops, but there again we can influence things a bit in our favour: by protecting some courgette plants we managed to have the last of them in early November one mild year, and not under glass either.


Hard though we try, however, there is much beyond our control, and that makes it all the more engrossing (again, for me). Two months ago I prepared a 1m x 1m patch to grow, fingers crossed without much hope of success, morels. A blend of sand, home-made compost, bonfire ash courtesy of a kind neighbour, decayed and decaying fragments of wood, chips of charcoal, rotting leaves, and some morel stuff bought from a reputable supplier, was mixed together and used on a square of ground beneath our oldest apple tree (morels are said to grow best in apple orchards, on ground where there has been a recent bonfire). I have kept the patch weeded if not overly so, moist to ensure the spores or seeds or whatever they be are not dessicated, and put the odd fallen young apple on there too. In May, we can but hope, we could just have our First Morel Day.

It Takes Gluts

Growing a reasonable amount of our own food with less than perfect planning of same means we enjoy, the right word, the occasional glut. I've written here before about trying to make good use of courgettes, the allotmenteer's most frequent flood crop. Currently it is artichokes.

On a general level life can't be bad when one of your few worries is dealing with a load of artichokes. They have been both early and numerous this year thanks to the mild winter and spring and the already decent summer. The first as is usual were boiled to be eaten leaf base by leaf base dipped in mustardy vinaigrette as a starter, the meaty heart gradually revealed by the strip tease. There are few things as simple and delicious.

Last night having picked and cooked a bagful of smaller ones (to keep the flush of thistly flowers going) the too fiddly leaves were discarded and just the hearts used, cut into little chunks and mixed with boiled egg, very thinly sliced onion and prawns. How much would that have cost had a 'celebrity' chef's name been attached to it in a recently re-designed eaterie?

It takes gluts like that to give me the freedom to do a bit of experimenting. Had I shopped for the artichokes a) I would have just bought three; b) the cost would have pushed me to play it safe.

Sadly we don't grow our own asparagus - we tried and lacking sandy ground failed - so I will not be doing much other than steaming it, but then something so good doesn't need mucking about. Same goes for the bucketfuls of new spuds currently hitting the kitchen, though some cold leftovers made it into a pickled herring salad yesterday. You can tell how many we have currently by the fact that there actually are leftovers.

Freshness is one of the benefits of GYO - our eggs are rarely more than a day or two old for example, a world of difference to shop bought; lettuces are crisper and tastier eaten within minutes of cutting; stawberries can't be beaten snaffled straight from plant to mouth (checking for slug-basts on the way). But the king of the fresh-is-best world is the new spud. Jersey Royals in the supermarket - they beat us by weeks - are bought in expectation and eaten in resignation. Our own dug, wiped, boiled and scoffed in short order are softer, the texture almost gelatinous for some varieties. And they have so much flavour that the merest wipe of butter and a few grains of salt are called for. Still, having had our fill several times over by now I'm looking to do some other dishes for variation. I have in mind to do something spicy to enhance the flavour without masking it. All ideas gratefully received.

Worth and Cost Aren't the Same

Our new potatoes have started, and they are by my reckoning a good fortnight earlier than last year thanks to the mild winter and spring. The flavour is like nothing you will ever find in a supermarket.

In the journal I'm keeping of the costs and benefits of our allotment and kitchen garden I assign monetary values to the produce. But good food goes way beyond pounds and pennies. New spuds eaten within a couple of hours of digging are pretty much priceless, such is the ephemeral nature of their perfection - leave them a day and the difference is considerable, leave them two and there is a feeling of guilt for wasting such a boon.

Spuds are not the only such item for the kitchen gardener: the best of sweetcorn is perhaps even more fleeting, something to be picked and rushed back to the pot within minutes if possible. Peas likewise - which is why I'll never buy 'fresh' peas in the supermarket, not a patch on the best frozen ones (thanks Clarence).

We had artichoke bottoms in our salad yesterday (they are likewise well ahead of last year's schedule), something else where picked small and cooked fresh from the plot the flavour and textures are a million miles from the mealy monsters available from Mr Sainsbury (if and when he actually offers them - not seen any recently). Even the humble radish, ridiculously easy and quick to grow, is crunchier and fierier by far than the plastic bagged red jobbies (which is another thing - we grow red, yellow, white, purple, red and white etc etc).

In that profit and loss calculation I'm attempting in the journal should I assign a value to the health benefits of digging, watering and weeding (about my only serious physical labour/exercise)? And the health benefits too of the variety of our diet and its superiority in terms of vitamins and maybe even minerals to what we can get from the shops? How to calculate the financial value of great flavour?

The value goes further. When Nepalese politicians  (I think it was in Nepal anyway) tried to monitor Gross National Happiness as an alternative to Gross Domestic Product etc the newspapers and other media outlets here generally took a condescending standpoint. I'm far more interested in GNH than GDP. If more of us grew our own spuds Britain's GNH would rise significantly.