Memories of vegetable gardens past nourish soul

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The Christmas lights are glowing as conversation and spicy scents drift through air filled with laughter and the usual lamentations.

Such are family gatherings at my house.

Finding a spare moment to sit and write has been a challenge – a mild description if ever there was one.

But persistence paid off, and here I am, replete with thoughts of family and friends and enough recommendations on what to write that I may need to consider penning a book. The topics had little to do with gardening and everything to do with Christmases past and – typical for my clan – meals past. Let’s just say that the happiest of my family’s memories usually involve a meal; my mother remembers picnics from her childhood, detailing every item down to the pie for dessert. My grandmother recounted the amount of preserves her mother put up every year, including the canning of fresh meat, and the meals they made from them through the winter. And my aunt reminisced about the time my brothers and I went to her house for lunch and proceeded to eat everything, literally, so by the time she sat down to eat, there was nothing left.

This familial peculiarity may explain my yearnings for gardens past. Vegetable gardens, to be precise, and the meals to be had from the bounty. As I’ve cooked for the holidays, I’ve been pining for a sun-warmed tomato, generously sliced, with a dash of salt and a bit of pepper. Or add a dollop of mayonnaise and a couple of slices of a nice grainy bread.

Oh, my.

A little more complicated recipe involves halved Sweet Million cherry tomatoes drizzled with olive oil and dashed with salt and pepper. Place a few leaves of fresh basil and oregano on top and then sprinkle with mozzarella. Broil it and you’re done.

I feel faint.

The tomato crop this year wasn’t the best, but it gave enough fruit to satisfy expectations and make some mouth-watering dishes. I was pleased with the taste of a French heirloom I started from seed. Jaune Flammee is ripe when it’s orange, with the size consistently that of a large egg. It added some interesting color to my usual bowls of red.

Like any plant I start in the house, it was late to develop, even though the packet said it matured at 60 days. In my time warp, that meant it ripened the same weeks as my other tomatoes, although I continue to believe that this was just not a good tomato year.

I think I should try again.

As I stirred up a batch of zucchini bread, I thought about the scratches and rashes I got when I gathered the summer squash. I had fended off the cucumber beetles from everything but the cucumbers (a

woeful loss that saddens me still because – gasp – I had to buy cucumbers for my pickles), so my summer squash were hard-won. The zucchini barely survived, which made my few bags of grated zucchini rather precious. It seemed right to use it at Christmastime and serve it to family and friends.

Next summer, I plan to beat the bugs into submission and save my dear squashes and cucumbers. I will go out on bug-smashing forays and then spray the plants with hot pepper wax until my trigger hand falls off, if necessary.

I am determined.

With the drone of the electric mixer in my ears, my mind drifted to visions of blueberries. I was whipping up a vanilla cake recipe and planned to doctor it up with nutmeg and blueberries. I wondered how my two new highbush blueberry plants were doing in the new raised bed.

I slaved over that bed, carting manure and humus until my back ached. I edged it with a pallet of bluestone, pinching a few fingers in the process. All of this I did because I wanted blueberries (up to 20 quarts a year!), strawberries, raspberries and asparagus.

I toted water until I was panting. Something ate the leaves off the strawberries until I started spraying them with hot pepper wax, which might just be a miracle garden cure-all. Unfortunately, the raspberries just didn’t take.

The blueberries, however, looked fine. They even blossomed, but no fruit developed. Well, what can one expect after the poor things were ripped from their cozy spot in southern Maine, only to be placed in plastic bags and sent to ride around in postal trucks? When they arrive at their final destination, they are left to languish for a few hours before being released to the wild again. I think I would blossom out of sheer gratitude, too, but that little show would sap the rest of my energy.

One might suppose that is what the bushes-twigs were thinking, if they could think, that is.

Either that or some aforementioned greedy woodland creature snarfing down strawberry leaves decided an appetizer of blueberries would be mighty tasty.

I fear that the temperature fluctuations will harm my blueberries, but I also keep telling myself that blueberries have survived the ravages of time without me to worry over them. Which means I shall just have to wait for spring to see what develops.

If only I really could be so blase about my plants.

It certainly hasn’t worked with my asparagus. I’ve got a lot riding on those dozen shoots that I started from seed last spring. The first sign of life was a delicate, threadlike sprout that looked like a miniature asparagus stalk.

Each soon branched out into wispy splendor, and when they were ready to be transplanted to the raised bed, I watered them religiously. I fretted over the 12 of them, wondering how something so seemingly fragile could withstand the rigors of life. I had plenty of failures littering my gardening past, and when the ravenous forest beast started on the strawberries, I practically wrapped the asparagus in cotton batting. Actually it was a cold frame and wire cloth, but you get the idea.

Finally, I knew I had to set them free so they could grow properly. I sprayed the hot pepper wax around for good measure and walked away.

When I last saw them before they died back for winter, all 12 had survived. It gives me hope for the next growing season. Maybe, someday in a few years, our holiday table will be graced with tender asparagus stalks touched with a hint of butter.

It will become another meal to remember.

Janine Pineo is a NEWS systems editor. Her e-mail address is jpineo@bangordailynews.net.