Take time to taste a little of the summer...

Lately, my mind has been preoccupied with thoughts of healthy food. How could it not be with the abundance growing all around us? My modest vegetable gardens of raised beds and containers can still be quite demanding, especially early in the summer setting them all up with seeds, plants and supplements. During dry summers, the added expense of city water can be considerable on top of the dollars already invested in starter plants, supplements, containers, tomato supports and other accoutrements. Each spring I tell myself I’ll cut back on what I plant but that resolve lasts only until my first visit to the garden store. Of course I have to have some tomato plants. As songwriter Guy Clark rhapsodizes, “Only two things that money can’t buy: that’s true love and homegrown tomatoes.” I have had much better luck with cherry tomato varieties, red and yellow, round, elliptical and pear-shaped. What’s more luxurious than being able to cruise around the garden beds, encouraging everyone to keep up the good work, snacking on some miniature tastes of summer sunshine? I always optimistically (or stubbornly) include some larger tomato varieties but I’ve had issues with bottom rot. (Any advice, anyone?) Not to mention they just take too darn long to ripen!

Other must-haves are acorn squash, broccoli, green peppers, spinach, lettuce, parsley, cilantro, basil, thyme, and garlic. I planted kale this year, which I’ve never much liked, but it’s one of the most nutritious greens, so I’ve been adjusting my attitude toward it. I have marveled at the large, luxurious leaves, and then realized I should probably move beyond appreciation and actually harvest some to eat. It’s actually pretty tasty steamed or sautéed with some olive oil and garlic, but then almost everything is improved with a bit of garlic. I do have an annual episode of garlic aphasia, much as I love it. It has to be planted in the fall, and even though it’s not much of a task to stick the cloves in the soil, with plenty of time to forget and remember again, I have often failed, waking up one morning after the ground has frozen solid, thinking, “Damn. I forgot the garlic again.”

When choosing who gets a chance to grow in my garden, the entertainment factor counts in my book right up there with gustatory, nutritional and decorative benefits. Isn’t it amazing to watch tiny seeds grow into spinach or radishes? How cool is it to see the feathery tops of carrots dancing taller and taller, and then one long-awaited day, a hint of orange breaks through the soil? Fennel and sunflowers offer pure amusement as they emerge into their glory. I bought a shrimp plant this year, an annual I’d never encountered before. No, it doesn’t produce seafood, but it has quirky blossoms that do bear a strong resemblance to orange, cooked shrimp.

I love it that we can grow our own food, free of pesticides and herbicides, an organic buffet providing the freshest possible food, minutes from picking to eating. Add to that the abundance of wild food, free for the gathering: wild asparagus, dandelions, lambs quarters, wild rice, wood nettle, mushrooms, burdock, basswood leaves, ostrich fern fiddleheads, parsnips, hazelnuts, and if you have lots of time and patience, maple syrup. Care must be taken when munching from the wild, for some plants or parts of them can be poisonous or irritating and that can change with the season, as well. For example, the roots of wild parsnips, dug in late fall or early spring, are edible, but, the juice of the summer leaves and stems of all parsnips can cause a severe rash. Wood nettle, an herb, stings when raw, but the cooked stems and leaves of young shoots make a tasty vegetable.

Burdock, often mistakenly called wild rhubarb, is considered a noxious and persistent weed by most. With each plant producing 18,000 seeds and burs that tenaciously grab on to clothing and animal fur to hitchhike elsewhere, it’s a survivor. The burdock barbs are so effective, they were the inspiration for Velcro in the early 1940’s. However, this much-maligned plant offers three vegetables: the roots, often sold in health food stores; the peeled young stalks that cook up like new potatoes, and the young leafstalks that can be used like celery in stew or soup, but take care: contact with the stems and leaves can cause inflammation.

Dandelions offer an astounding nutritional and medicinal treasure chest, used as a food and medicine for thousands of years, so try harvesting instead of poisoning them, avoiding any that have been sprayed with chemicals. With more protein than spinach, dandelions are rich in vitamins A, C, and some B’s, fiber, potassium, iron, calcium, magnesium, zinc and phosphorus with some trace minerals, organic sodium and vitamin D. Dandelion acts as a mild laxative that promotes digestion, increases appetite and balances the beneficial bacteria in the intestine. It is also a diuretic, helping the kidney clear out waste, salt and excess water through increased urination while at the same time, replacing some of the potassium lost in the process. The diuretic function also aids in reducing blood pressure while its fiber and potassium can also help regulate blood pressure. The dandelion helps liver function by removing toxins and reestablishing hydration and electrolyte balance while also increasing the release of bile. All parts of the dandelion plant are rich in antioxidants that prevent free-radical damage to cells and DNA, therefore slowing down the aging process in our cells. Ongoing studies have shown some promise that the dandelion might help retard the growth and spread of cancer through its phytonutrients and antioxidants which also help reduce inflammation, pain and swelling. Reducing swelling and increasing bile production aids with gall bladder problems and blockages. Multiple animal studies have shown that dandelion helps lower cholesterol levels and that the lipid levels help regulate blood sugar and insulin levels. And with all this, dandelion fights off microbes and fungi and boosts immune system function. Who knew this superfood was growing in abundance right under our noses? Well, actually, I guess lots of people knew for millenia before that information was forgotten, suppressed or tossed to the side by people who wanted a more “modern” or profitable approach. (Information from: https://sunwarrior. com/healthhub)

And then there’s our berries. Grab your berry buckets and take your pick: raspberries, blueberries, chokecherries, blackberries, juneberries (also known as service berries or Saskatoons) and what else? I haven’t heard as much this summer about currants, elderberries, high bush cranberries, gooseberries, pin cherries, thimbleberries or lingonberries, but I imagine they’re thriving out there, too. When I moved to Ely, I’d never made preserves nor heard of chokecherries, but I saw the lush, purple clusters and started picking. At first, I thought I’d make jam, but quickly discovered that there was no mashing chokecherries, raw or cooked, with pits that occupy two-thirds of each berry. I figured I had to make jelly instead, but had only vague memories of my mom making currant jelly, dripping juice through a fabric bag hanging over a pot on the stove. So I headed to the hardware store; with the kind assistance of the women there, some suggestions of women in town who were jelly makers and some instructional videos on U-tube, I managed to produce two dozen jars of dazzling deep purple; lined up near the window sill, they rivaled the beauty of stained glass. Tasting the deep flavor created from the very sour fruit combined with low-sugar pectin and the least amount of sugar I could get away with, I was sure I’d never had jelly so delicious.

As I intellectually and literally dig deeper into the natural world, I feel more balanced with that connection with the earth as well as just plain satisfaction feasting on food I have grown or gathered. Popping open a can from the Jolly Green Giant just can’t compare. Greg Brown captured it in one of my favorite songs, Canned Goods: “Taste a little of the summer, my grandma put it all in jars. She cans the songs of the whippoorwill and the morning dew and the evening moon. I really got to go see her pretty soon ‘cos these canned goods I buy at the store ain’t got the summer in them anymore.”