Jennifer R. Bartley - The Kitchen Gardeners Handbook

The Kitchen Gardeners Handbook

JENNIFER R. BARTLEY

Frontispiece: A bounty of squash, potatoes, onions, peppers, corn, melon, tomatoes, beans, and flowers from the summer garden.

Copyright 2010 by Jennifer R. Bartley. All rights reserved.

Photographs are by the author unless otherwise indicated.

Published in 2010 by Timber Press, Inc.

The Haseltine Building 2 The Quadrant

133 S.W. Second Avenue, Suite 450 135 Salusbury Road

Portland, Oregon 97204-3527 London NW6 6RJ

www.timberpress.com www.timberpress.co.uk

ISBN-13: 978-0-88192-956-0

Printed in China

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bartley, Jennifer R.
The kitchen garden companion / Jennifer R. Bartley.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-88192-956-0
1. Kitchen gardens. 2. Plants, OrnamentalSeasonal variations. 3. Seasonal cookery. 4. Floral decorations. I. Title.
SB321.B384 2010
635dc22 2010005070

A catalog record for this book is also available from the British Library.

Mention of trademark, proprietary product, or vendor does not constitute a guarantee or warranty of the product by the publisher or author and does not imply its approval to the exclusion of other products or vendors.

To my parents, James E. Matson and Ruth R. Matson

Happy is it, indeed, for me that my heart is capable of feeling the same simple and innocent pleasure as the peasant whose table is covered with food of his own rearing, and who not only enjoys his meal, but remembers with delight the happy days and sunny mornings when he planted it, the soft evenings when he watered it, and the pleasure he experienced in watching its daily growth.

J. W. VON GOETHE, The Sorrows of Werther

A variety of red and green lettuces surrounded by a small boxwood hedge in the potager of the Bourton House Garden in Gloucestershire, England. The intensively planted garden provides food without sacrificing artistry.

I really am a lucky girl to spend much of my days designing, photographing, writing about, and walking in gardens. There are many people who make that possible and I am indebted to them.

Thank you to all of my clients who allow me to design their special garden spaces. I am humbled and honored. A special thanks to one who would rather remain anonymous. Thank you for your trust and the opportunity to create your elegant and edible paradise. It has been and continues to be an amazing process of garden building and friendship.

Thank you to Dean and Sally Schmitt for your support and help. You allowed me to take over your kitchen, house, and schedule for many days. I do appreciate the shared hours of cooking, setting the table, eating, and cleaning up just so I could take a few snapshots.

Thank you to my husband, Terry Bartley, who is a true comrade in this ongoing process of growing, cooking, and eating from the garden. You truly keep all things together so that I can create. Thank you to my kids who make cooking and eating together so much fun. You had great patience while I set up photo shoots in the middle of family dinners.

Thank you to Timber Press and everyone there, especially Tom Fischer for your enthusiasm for the project and Linda Willms for your attention to detail.

A seasonal map of the authors garden hints at the changing landscape, with flowers, fruits, and vegetables each in season in its time. The frost-free days are evident: the growing season for tender crops is 15 May to 15 October. If you look carefully at your landscape throughout the year, you will always find something remarkable in every season.

This is a book that will help you live with the seasons, embracing what each has to offer. Many cookbooks are organized in this way; this one is special because it is also a home book with ideas for cutting the complementary perennial flowers, greens, blossoms, and twigs that bloom when you are ready to harvest the edibles and prepare a meal.

Its a book of recipes from the kitchen garden and ideas of when to use the flowers, trees, and shrubs growing around your home. Cooking is like gardening; it takes experimentation and an adventurous spirit. This is the way I cook. I try to keep it as simple and uncomplicated as possible. Sometimes the recipes are everyday (what I call peasant food) simple one-dish meals: al dente pasta with extravirgin olive oil, garlic, something from the garden, preferably Genovese basil, a few toasted walnuts, and a little grated hard cheese.

This is also a design book. It will show you how to create a more sustainable landscape around your home. Plans and sketches from my own garden (outside the formal kitchen garden) and those Ive designed for clients demonstrate how to reduce the lawn and create a seasonal, edible, and useful garden. These designs are not complicated but they have layers of plants. Sometimes edibles are selected; sometimes a shrub or flower for cutting. All of the plants work together to create a garden.

Heres how the book is laid out: Each of the four main sections focuses on a season and begins with an in-depth look at the vegetables, fruits, greens, and herbs that are at their peak at that particular point in the year. Growing information is included for each plant, and many of the profiles are accompanied by recipes. Seasonal menus round out this section. Then we turn to shrubs and flowers that can be used to decorate the table, garden designs, and the particular tasks that need doing in that season.

Each season has its special gifts. Strawberries last a few weeks in late spring. Cherries last a few weeks in the summer. Fresh basil is just for warm weather. Kale is sweetest in the fall after a frost. The more we live seasonally the more thankful we become for the little things. Its about savoring and receiving with thankfulness. Good food doesnt have to be fancy or complicated. Simple is best, right off the vine. Getting to that simplicity is the problem.

This is our modern challenge, our frontier: to create our properties so that trees, shrubs, grasses, perennials, annuals, fruits, herbs, and vegetables are planted in a way that makes sense. My goal is to use plants to create shade, enclosure, volume, structure, fragrance, bloom, bouquets, shelter, beauty, texture, or something to eat for the birds or me. Each plant, whether its edible or not has its place in the garden. Groundcovers on the ground plane protect the soil. Shrubs and perennials form the next layer of planting and provide cover for birds and wildlife. These plants also create space. Medium and large shrubs create enclosure and define the space of the garden. The final and top layer is the canopy. Here trees provide shade and a boundary to the garden.