Garden Vegetables

I keep intending to write about important issues, such as how to save energy on transportation and housing and reduce our environmental footprint, but every day I am overwhelmed by produce from the garden. I spend my time cutting up tomatoes and cucumbers, kale, chard and squash. At this time of year Larry and I always remember our friend Chaz, who becomes a vegetarian just for the month of August. I already told you how much I love the farmer's market, but there are advantages to having one's own garden, for example, the tomato shown to the left. We think it is a Rutgers tomato, a particular strain of tomato that was chosen to thrive and produce well here in New Jersey. We are calling it the devil tomato. We haven't seen anything like it in the 23 years Larry has had a garden here.

Something fun that we often see is squash vines that grow up by themselves, known as volunteers. The vine in the photo above grew in the compost pile, from a seed that was dumped there. We think it is a pumpkin. It seems not to be attractive to deer or other pests. I have read that squash and pumpkin plants are deer-resistant because they are so fuzzy, but that isn't always true. Sometimes the scientists who produce hybrid plants knowingly or unknowingly sacrifice qualities of hardiness (including deer-resistance) in favor of bigger, tastier or more beautiful fruit or flowers, or perhaps some other valuable property. The volunteer squash vines, though, always seem to grow vigorously and resist deer. Another volunteer squash vine is growing inside the garden and out over the fence; we have eaten a few of its fruits and they are very tasty. Please note that you can have a volunteer squash vine if you only dump the seeds of all the squash you eat all year in your compost pile. Since pumpkins are edible, you can add the seeds from your Halloween pumpkin. With luck, next year you will have a volunteer squash of your very own. However, be sure to discard any ornamental gourds you may have in some other place. It is very disappointing to cook and serve what you think is a delicious squash, only to find that it tastes bitter.