July is upon us and I have been caught in a whirlwind of tomato pruning and trellising. We are just beginning to get a slow trickle of tomatoes here and there. July 4th is the “official” tomato date that I have cemented in my mind. Of course, this is a soft date: some years are cooler or perhaps I am late getting my tomatoes in, so the tomatoes arrive a week or so after July 4th. Other years are hot and the tomatoes come early. Farming is not an exact science, but more like a painting that you come back to and adjust, paint over, start again. Nevertheless, I can feel the impending deluge and, like most years, it will begin right around July 4th. In this antediluvian moment, I anticipate the wave of sumptuous tomatoes — and simultaneously dread what that means.
The farm and fields are in transition right now. The layered greens of springtime have been overtaken by hundreds of feet of tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. The lush salad beds have corn and melons now. Cucumbers have replaced the sugar snap and snow pea trellising that withered weeks ago when that first brutal heat wave hit. Summer is officially here and so, before the florid flood, before June and all her lovely vegetables have vanished, before we are bombarded with pictures of tomatoes, corn and eggplant, I thought it would be nice to celebrate June and her vegetables in all their lush glory.
The garden just a couple weeks ago in mid June, right before I harvested all the cabbage and fioretto cauliflower. You can see the browning, finished snow peas in the background.
Sometimes I like to grow vegetables to match my house. This fioretto cauliflower is actually a cross between broccoli and cauliflower and a June highlight for me. The flavor is delicate and tastes more like broccoli than cauliflower.
My own version of giardiniera with this lovely fioretto sprouting cauliflower, fennel, celery, onions, some lemon and spices. Anyone who knows me, knows I don't know how to take it easy or slow down. Even on my days off I'm constantly moving, creating, doing. I know, I know, my husband says I can be a bit much sometimes and absolutely exhausting. Perhaps I should blame it on my Aries rising. Apologies in advance, but I like it this way. I thrive when I'm doing something good, enacting change, living.
Celery is always a highlight for me. It's a staple that is notoriously hard to grow. When you first seed it, it can take weeks to germinate and requires even more weeks of babying and tending in the greenhouse before it's ready to plant out. Once it's ready for the field it still requires a lot of water, otherwise it will quickly turn bitter and stringy. Here, on the Delmarva peninsula, we can only grow it in the fall, spring and early summer. I like a challenge and celery is one of those special crops that tastes absolutely nothing like the watered-down version you find in every grocery store. The flavor is intense and more akin to an herb than vegetable. I use the tops just as I would use parsley. The stems and tops featured heavily in my giardiniera pickle above. I love to use it in all the traditional ways: sofrito, mirepoix, soups, stews and stock but I also like to center it and braise it in the oven in some chicken stock until it's silky, tender and the texture is transformed into something that you don't think of as celery, but the flavor still hangs around and hits you afterward as something that could only ever be celery in its most essential form.
The Chiogga “candy cane” variety of beets take a bit longer to size up than your traditional purple beet, but the ones I've been pulling lately are unusually large and we've been enjoying them in this quick and easy beet tzatziki dip made with dill, garlic, lemon juice, and labne. The beets are roasted until they are soft and fork tender, before blending all the ingredients together. I love to eat it with some crusty sourdough bread or pita for a cooling lunch after a humid, sweaty morning in the field.
This unicorn cabbage is a perennial favorite of mine that I grow every spring. June is normally the time when she's ready to harvest. This year, for whatever reason, she was hit a bit harder than normal by those insidious cabbage worms but even still, I got a decent crop. We've been enjoying her almost daily in slaws, roasted or simply raw on sandwiches and wraps.
Here I am, lost in the tomato jungle, dirty, sweaty, tired but content.
Earlier this week I read a beautiful passage from Saint-Martin: "The proof that we are regenerated is that we regenerate everything around us." This is the beauty of growing a tomato, having a pot of herbs on your balcony, tending a seed all the way to harvest. To put it a bit more tritely, be the change that you want to see in the world: plant a tree, tend your garden, care for those in your community, challenge yourself in big ways, as well as small. Along the way, you just might grow yourself, find new friends in unexpected places, change a small corner of earth and rediscover a bit of humanity within yourself and those around you too. What are the ways you find yourself cultivating community as we move into the dog days of summer? What was your favorite vegetable of June and what corner of this good earth do you look toward for beauty and comfort?
Despite our alienation from nature, we are each a part of a sacred cycle much grander than this current moment. And yet, to participate in this current moment, to eat seasonally, to listen to the morning birdsong, to relish the June fireflies while anticipating the tomatoes of July is to be part of these very cycles that make us human and whole.
xxxx Natalie
Beautiful article and sensational photography!
Wow, your veggies! And wow, this writing! I’m so inspired by your work with the land and language about it.