Lingering Treasures

Asian Green

Persistent Rose

Last Apple

There is usually a lingering treasure in the garden this time of year, something extra.  When the garden has been put to bed and the bounty put up, we turn towards other activities- preparations for the holidays, pulling out winter clothes and ski equipment, long walks with frost filled lungs.  But the garden doesn’t go away.  It silently continues its slow decay and growth.  Upon return from chilly walks, I still make the garden rounds, checking for something, planning for next year and musing about what had been there a month ago and two months ago.

Some of you, in warmer climates, are still gardening, or have winter gardens growing under protection.  We are harvesting leeks and kale and in the greenhouse there is arugula, lettuce, chard, and one rampant mustard plant.  Our treasures this November, are this Asian green.  I am not sure what variety it is.  It grew to great heights out of a lettuce mix.  We harvested and enjoyed it in stir fry, crunchy and sweet.  And this lovely rose just keeps blooming.  It has climbed up into the crab apple tree and perched itself there, with obvious intent to outlast everyone of its garden companions.  Everything else is quiet and brown.

Do you still have tomatoes turning red on your windowsill?  Is there a lingering melon, red pepper or one last bouquet of flowers?  I would love to hear about it.  Here is a poem that I heard on the Writer’s Almanac a few weeks ago and immediately knew I had to share it here.  This poem came from Diane Lockward’s book, What Feeds Us, which I hope to spend some time with this winter.

The First Artichoke

by Diane Lockward

Though everyone said no one could grow
artichokes in New Jersey, my father
planted the seeds and they grew one magnificent
artichoke, late-season, long after the squash,
tomatoes, and zucchini.

It was the derelict in my father’s garden,
little Buddha of a vegetable, pinecone gone awry.
It was as strange as a bony-plated armadillo.

My mother prepared the artichoke as if preparing
a miracle. She snipped the bronzy winter-kissed tips
mashed breadcrumbs, oregano, parmesan, garlic,
and lemon, stuffed the mush between the leaves,
baked, then placed the artichoke on the table.
This, she said, was food we could eat with our fingers.

When I hesitated, my father spoke of beautiful Cynara,
who’d loved her mother more than she’d loved Zeus.
In anger, the god transformed her
into an artichoke. And in 1949 Marilyn Monroe
had been crowned California’s first Artichoke Queen.

I peeled off a leaf like my father did,
dipped it in melted butter, and with my teeth
scraped and sucked the nut-flavored slimy stuff.
We piled up the inedible parts, skeletons
of leaves and purple prickles.

Piece by piece, the artichoke came apart,
the way we would in 1959, the year the flowerbuds
of the artichokes in my father’s garden bloomed
without him, their blossoms seven inches wide
and violet-blue as bruises.

But first we had that miracle on our table.
We peeled and peeled, a vegetable striptease,
and worked our way deeper and deeper,
down to the small filet of delectable heart.