"Gardening’s real when so much of the world ain’t."

Gardening’s real when so much of the world ain’t-- Loretta Lynn (April/May 2016 AARP magazine)



Horse trough raised garden

Some people don’t like having an overabundance of garden produce, but I dream of such a problem—it makes cooking and eating fun and creative experiences.  Years ago when I was teaching school and enrolled as a graduate student at the University of Tennessee, I had part ownership of a large vegetable garden.  We were inundated with spinach and Swiss chard.  I had never even heard of Swiss chard!  This was before the internet so I pored through cookbooks hunting for suitable recipes.  I remember a chard and Parmesan cheese bake, but I’m not sure what else I came up with.  Other people in the house also had cooking responsibilities so they probably fixed “messes” of mixed greens and corn bread, and we all ate well.

I’m originally from a small town located in a wide valley between mountain ridges in Southwest Virginia.  Many people there agree with Loretta Lynn and still plant a garden, and harvest time inevitably brings forth an abundance of squash.  You would be hard pressed to enter a home that didn’t have at least one loaf of zucchini bread in the freezer, waiting for a new neighbor to move in, a friend to fall ill, the birth of a baby, or a bereavement.   Zucchini bread covers it all.

When I had an overabundance of zucchini in grad school, thanks to the largesse of a friend (as it was before I moved into the big garden house), I co-hosted a party that was billed as “Tribute to the Zucchini.”  I made zucchini Provençal, stuffed zucchini, zucchini dipped in a beer batter and fried, and zucchini bread, to name a few of the dishes. 

 A few years ago, I spearheaded the planting of a small garden at the Early Head Start Center I supervised.  Our successful crops were cherry tomatoes, okra, cucumbers—and zucchini.  When I bought the plants I didn’t realize that most of my staff only ate yellow squash and had never even seen a zucchini.  That meant that I had all the zucchini for myself!  I made a stacked squash casserole; zucchini corn bread, zucchini chocolate chip cookies, oven “fried” zucchini and, of course, loaves of zucchini bread. 

Zucchini chocolate chip cookies

Last week a friend gave me a bunch of Meyer lemons so I fixed black-eyed peas, sautéed Swiss chard, roasted red potatoes tossed with lemon juice and olive oil, and lemon corn bread.   

As you can see above, currently my garden is a raised bed, actually a horse trough, supported by a frame so it is modest in size.  I hope this experiment produces something edible.  If not, like Blanche Dubois, I’ll be depending on the kindness of strangers, or friends, to share their oversupplies with me.