When our son was a toddler, our family moved from a suburban neighborhood in Washington, DC, to what was then rural Virginia. In the process we acquired a huge garden, mature fruit trees, and a weedy but wonderful raspberry patch. Naively we planted every inch of space, mulching in between beds with paper bags, newspapers, grass clippings, and rotted hay (plentiful in nearby barns where two resident farmers who ran the 2,000-acre celebrity’s estate on which we lived).

Organic Bounty

In return for apricots from one of our trees, the farmers gladly tilled and spread manure on our garden for free. We read everything from Organic Gardening to Thomas Jefferson’s Farm Book (the same vein of rich red soil ran from our Piedmont garden to his Monticello) on crop rotation and natural fertilizers. Our son greeted every earthworm as a friend, and I learned how to blend garlic and hot peppers with enough water to make a natural pest spray.

Even as novice organic gardeners, we found our labors amply rewarded. We ate straight from the garden from May into October, enjoying a variety of beans, beets, cabbages, cantaloupe, carrots, cucumbers, kohlrabi, lettuces, onions, peas, peppers, potatoes, pumpkins, spinach, summer and winter squashes, sweet corn (yes, our garden was large enough for several varieties to cross-pollinate decently), tomatoes, and turnips—all interplanted with herbs and flowers. Our harvest was so generous that we shared its wealth with our farmer friends and carried what we (and they) couldn’t use to the local farmers’ market every Saturday.

Emboldened by success our first year, we added perennial crops the next season: asparagus, horseradish, rhubarb, and strawberries—all of which thrived. We also experimented: planting peanuts, a miserable failure; building a cold frame next to a south-facing chimney, a great way to prolong the growing season for root crops and herbs.

The garden was the centerpiece of our warm-weather routines. Our son’s sandbox guarded one corner, his jungle gym presided over another. A hammock, shaded by a willow, marked the third corner, and our home was only steps away from the fourth. Many a morning I walked barefoot from our bedroom in the dewy dawn to pull weeds while the soil was still damp.

We knew, of course, to let the sun bake nutrients into our crops, preferring to pick only when we were ready to eat or when a crop needed harvesting. Corn and peas we learned to pluck, shuck or shell, and cook in less than 10 minutes from garden to table to capture their sweetness. What we couldn’t share, we canned, froze, pickled, or turned into jam or jelly. While grateful for garden gifts all year long, it was the fresh pickings that kept us hard at work tending our crops when we weren’t busy caring for our son and juggling paying jobs.

Fresh Bounty

Life has taken us far away from that idyllic spot, but we continue to treasure nature’s freshness: my husband and I count the days until a nearby organic farm stand opens to expand our buying club’s and local health food stores’ offerings; our son cruises the produce sections of natural products stores halfway across the country for the freshest fruits and vegetables. When it’s flavorful and at its peak, why not let nature’s bounty guide your daily menu?