The Beginner’s Guide to Growing Heirloom Vegetables

The Beginner’s Guide to Growing Heirloom Vegetables
The 100 Easiest-to-Grow Tastiest Vegetables for Your Garden
By Marie Iannotti

As the growing season gets into full swing, you might be making some last minute choices on vegetables to plant.  How about some heirlooms?  Breeding has changed the flavor of many of our vegetables.  If you think the flavor of vegetables from years ago was better or more intense, you might just be right.  Heirloom vegetables bring back those flavors.

What is an heirloom vegetable?  According to this book, they must be open pollination, meaning their seeds will grow into plants with the same characteristics as the parent plant, they must be more than 50 years old, and they must have been handed down so that we know where they came from.

“…an heirloom can be anything of value that is passed down through generations, be it jewelry, baseball cards, your first grade report card, or a humble jar of beans.”

Marie also points out that we’ve gotten used to buying new seeds every year but in days gone by, you had to save seeds to plant the next year.  “When we save seeds, we tend to be selective, so the seeds handed down from generation to generation are often among the best vegetable varieties ever grown.”

I had to laugh when I read, “Homegrown heirloom vegetables can be so beautiful and delicious that it seems you could simply inhale them, and many vegetables never make it all the way from the garden to the kitchen.”  I recalled days when my father would pick a kohlrabi and peel it with his pocket knife and feed me slices in the garden, or the simple pleasure of opening a ripe pea pod and eating the raw sweet peas straight out of the jacket.

Marie divides her top picks into Aromatic, Beautiful, Classic, Colorful, Long Season, Prolific, Spicy, Sweet, Unusual, and Versatile.  All the while keeping in mind that limiting it to 100 means she needed to pick the hardiest and flavors you won’t usually find.

For each entry she includes information on ideal sun exposure, soil temperature, planting depth, days to germination, spacing and days to maturity, growing notes, how to harvest, tips and others to try, as well as anecdotes of its origin and vivid descriptions of the plant and vegetable that capture its splendor. 

From artichokes and asparagus to squash, I recognize some of the vegetables in this collection.  The Chioggia beet has been extolled in Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Chiot’s Run organic gardening blog has mentioned many as well.  Early Purple Vienna kohlrabi is a childhood memory.  Rainbow Swiss Chard, Kentucky Wonder green bean, French Breakfast radish, White Icicle radish, and Cherokee Purple tomato are all present and accounted for.

This book also brought others to my attention that I had not yet heard of.  It made me want to grow “German Butterball “ potatoes that melt in your mouth and Small Sugar squash looks and sounds like a delectable, compact, pie pumpkin. 

Marie ends with a section on creating your own heirlooms and seed-saving basics, with a more specific guide to different types of plants.  There is also a small glossary of terms, a chart of hardiness zones and a resource list of companies and some suggested reading, plus the ever present index.

“Their true splendor comes from being too scrumptious to forget, so we continue to grow and eat them for generations.” 

Check it out for some inspiration in your garden!

A Triple Crown of Horse Stories

Man o’ War, Black Gold, The Mystery of the Crimson Ghost

Somehow another year has passed and, once again, I’ve missed the Kentucky Derby.  Yes, the closest I came to the Derby this year was mixing up the non-alcoholic mint julep punch and picking up the pecan tassies from the local bakery for our showing of Secretariat on the big screen the following weekend.  Thankfully, it is far from over.  The Preakness will be run tomorrow, the second leg in the Triple Crown.  Then the Belmont Stakes will be run in Elmont, New York in June. 

Why this interest in horse racing?  Do I have a closet addiction to gambling?  No, my (not-so-closet) addiction is to the pecan tassies, but even more to the horses.  As a young girl, I definitely had horse fever.  In all fairness, I’d say it’s a fairly normal obsession for a young girl and there were a number of things that fed my obsession. 

You could say a love of horses runs in my blood.  My maternal grandmother’s cousin was a veterinarian at Claiborne Farms in Kentucky, where Secretariat, that big hearted, triple crown winning, record setter retired.  Secretariat couldn’t help but leave an impression on anyone. 

Distantly related to Secretariat, was another “Big Red” named Man O’War.  Most people think of The Black Stallion when they hear Walter Farley’s name but nothing ever equaled the story telling that I read in his fictionalized account of Man O’War.  Perhaps that was because Man O’War was a real horse and one that Farley saw in person, the memory engraved on his mind and related in the foreward to the book. 

Though the book is purportedly for children, I think that's because the main character is a young man and the reading level is low enough to be easy for anyone.  But the story is gripping and 350 pages is a long enough novel for most.  It is a fictionalized account of the life of a real horse, told through the eyes of a fictional groom.  If you like horses and you haven’t read Man O’War, you’re in for a great read.

Besides the horses in books, real horses surrounded me as a child.  Close enough to touch, but often not close enough to ride.  On alternating Friday nights, the iron hitching post that served as a property marker of my parent’s land became more than a relic of distant times.  Horses trotted up and down the street of my small village as people tried them out before the auction at Chamber’s barn, just a few houses down and across the street. 

I could walk over to the barn on the corner and look in the window at the big, beautiful work horses the owners still used to work the fields.  Most days of the week, I could see horses roaming the field as I looked between houses, walking down the street to school. I still remember where the books on horses were in my elementary school library.   

That was where I found Black Gold by Marguerite Henry.  “The time of year is May, and already the bluestem grass is nearly stirrup high.  On either side of the Chisholm Trail it ripples across the broad grazing grounds on its way to meet the sky.”  It is a lyrical story that relates the tale of a legendary horse in Henry’s picturesque prose.  Black Gold won his last race “on three legs and a heart,” having broken his leg just above the ankle.  This story has stayed with me for nearly three decades.

I was already certifiably horse crazy when a friend asked me if I wanted to earn a few dollars walking polo horses during matches at the Susquehanna Stables, across the river.  I was in heaven walking these graceful animals after they were tired out from playing polo.  I remember one sweet mare named Dolly who would rest her head on my shoulder as we walked. 

Another friend owned a horse in my middle school years and I was eager to do whatever I could just to be around a horse, including happily mucking out a stall. Then there were the horses owned by my friends, whose parents rented my grandmother’s barn and fields.  Everywhere I went, there were horses.

I don't remember where I found it but another book that always stood out in my memory was The Mystery of the Crimson Ghost by Phyllis Whitney.  What could be better than the combination of a horse and a mystery?  I think I read this book over and over again.  It has the typical set up of a young girl on vacation away from her parents, this time at her aunt’s house.  She loves horses and there is one across the lake that she just might be allowed to ride but there is something standing in her way, a crimson ghost dog. 

While these stories are appropriate for children and are often shelved in that area, I highly recommend them for anyone who loves horses and enjoys a good story.  I may just have to read them again myself. 

Practical Magic ~ Alice Hoffman

Practical Magic
By Alice Hoffman

This is probably one of my all-time favorite stories, whether as a movie or a book.  I first fell in love with the movie in my twenties.  It’s everything a young woman wants in a story – a romance, a comedy, some kick-ass heroines who end up saving themselves and a whole lot of magic. 

The movie led me to the book.  The two play out differently and the book is told in a slightly different way, but this was the first introduction to magic realism I had in a book format.  (Of course, one might look at magic realism as a modern fairytale and, in that respect, say that they had been reading such stories since they could read.)

Sally and Gillian are as different as night and day and yet so close that they can finish each other’s sentences.  Sally is dark haired while Gillian is blond.  Sally is the responsible one, while Gillian is the lazy one.  Their parents died when they were young and they went to live with the aunts, who lost their loves when they were young women themselves. 

Sally and Gillian hope to find that their aunts are charlatans, but that isn’t the case.  When a young woman turns to the aunts for a love potion because she is obsessed with an older man, she gets more than she bargained for.  The older man becomes obsessed with her and suffocating in his love.  When the girls see this played out, they make a vow never to fall in love.

Of course, fate has other ideas, but it isn’t a smooth road.  Love comes to each of them, but not easily.   This seems to be the manner of things for Owens women.  They live under a curse when it comes to love. 

This story is a modern fairytale.  Most fairytales take the line that love can set you free but, in this story, love can be entangling, even obsessive.  It is a book of extremes, things that don’t or can’t happen in real life and things that people don’t or won’t say in real life, happen here.  The writing itself is somehow magical.  Give it a chance to cast a spell on you.

The Time Traveler's Wife ~ Audrey Niffenegger

The Time Traveler's Wife
By Audrey Niffenegger

Henry first met Clare when he was 28 years old and Clare was 20, but Clare first met Henry fourteen years earlier when she was 6.  He was 36 years old at the time.  You see, Henry suffers with Chrono-Displacement Disorder.  He suddenly disappears out of his timeline and can be dropped down anywhere, at any time, without clothes or money to sustain him. 

Henry isn’t a saint.  Being dropped down anywhere and anywhen without anything to wear has led to some skills at theft to clothe and feed himself.  This, in turn, has led to multiple arrest warrants being issued.  His saving grace is that he has no identification so if he is caught, he simply waits until he is pulled into a new place and time.  Houdini had nothing on Henry.

Henry’s first experience being displaced is when he is 5.  He finds himself back in the Field Museum of Natural History, which he had not wanted to leave earlier in the day.  Luckily, he has a wonderful guide, himself!  Though he doesn’t know it. 

How would you act if this happened to you?  How would you explain things? To strangers?  To people you love?  How would it affect your relationships? 

This isn’t an easy book.  At one point Clare is abused by a male classmate and Henry helps her to teach him a lesson.  I picked up this book expecting somewhat of a fluffy romantic comedy but found much more.  I highly recommend it.

Days When I Saw the Horizon Bleed

Days When I Saw the Horizon Bleed
By Andrei Guruianu

Last night I had the pleasure of hosting the poets Susan Deer Cloud and Michael Czarnecki at our library for a discussion and reading.  The moderately sized group was split down the middle age-wise, eight teens and eight adults.  I was incredibly impressed by what the teens had already been through in their lives and how they had used poetry to give themselves a voice.  It was an inspirational evening and made me think I’d like to talk about a poetry book this morning. 

I don’t have anything in the library collection by Susan Deer Cloud yet but she mentioned another poet who she worked with at Binghamton University, Andrei Guruianu.  He has read and conducted workshops here in the past so I knew I had his books on the shelf.  I selected a book which was published by Michael Czarnecki’s Foothills Publishing, called Days When I Saw the Horizon Bleed.

Andrei Guruianu came to America from Romania as a young man which makes the themes of tradition, family, immigration and relationships at home in his writing. 

The ties to the old country come through in Days When I Saw the Horizon Bleed as he walks with his grandfather through a melon patch while The Romania I Remember summons forth people singing “songs of pain and songs of joy.”  The pain of leaving family behind in less than ideal conditions echoes in Abandoned.

A wry humor speaks in Yes, it’s true.  A little bit bitter as well? He responds to people who bring up Dracula when they hear he is Romanian. 

as you’ve probably suspected,

at night I secretly file my canines

into sharp points

before crawling into the coffin

I keep hidden in the bedroom closet. 

Grandfather reminded me of my sister, hearing her own name at our Grandmother’s funeral. I was only eight at the time but I’ve never forgotten her reaction.

They speak of you, Andrei

the one I’ve never met

whose name I carry. 

I have always preferred family names, names carried on by the next generation.  Though my daughter’s first name is her own, her middle name is one she shares with my grandmother, my mother and myself.

Reasons for Sleeping 

I’ve realized that I no longer

look forward to falling asleep at night

just to get some rest.

I sleep to stop thinking,

Being the mother of a small child, I fall asleep quickly and hope it will last, that I won’t be woken in the night by the siren of a wail, but I still identified strongly with this poem.  I was thinking the other day how I more fully understand these days what it means to be an adult, to feel the weight of the world pressing down because I worry how it might all affect my child at some point.  I never worried so much until I became a mother.

The author probably would have preferred that I write about more recent books, such as his most recent, Postmodern Dogma.  Hopefully he isn’t too chagrined that I went back to his first.  I think if you start at the beginning, with this book, you’ll continue reading.  You know where to find them.  If they are all checked out, you can find him online at http://www.andreiguruianu.com/ 

Big Fish ~ Daniel Wallace

Big Fish
By Daniel Wallace

“I thought of him suddenly, and simply, as a boy, a child, a youth, with his whole life ahead of him, much as mine was ahead of me. I’d never done that before. And these images – the now and then of my father – converged, and at that moment he turned into a weird creature, wild, concurrently young and old, dying and newborn. My father became a myth.”

When we’re young we see our fathers as larger than life. They pick us up and fling us around. They have an answer for everything we want to know. Then, one day, we realize that they are simply human, with all the inadequacies of the human race, and not everyone can forgive them for that, for being human.

In Big Fish, Daniel Wallace writes a novel that returns a father to those mythic proportions while encompassing the frailties of humanity, embodied in having an affair and dying of a disease.

Edward Bloom was an absentee father. William Bloom has learned who his father is in jokes and tall tales his father told while he was home. Among the tall tales and stories of Edward Bloom’s life, four different versions of his death are related. In the beginning, Edward is cracking jokes and telling tall tales while William rejects the humor and begs for something real, to finally know his father before he dies. In the end, William accepts that the tall tales and jokes are how he will know and remember his father.

A work of Magic Realism, Big Fish takes reality and infuses it with elements of the myth or legend. Things happen in a way that could never happen in real life, but in doing so make the story more true than if it had happened realistically because, the truth is, impossible things happen in real life all the time. When that happens, we say, “Huh. What’s the chance of that?” and put it down to coincidence. It’s up to you whether you believe in coincidence or not.

My father always told stories of his life as a boy. They were realistic and I accepted them as fact. It took some time before I realized they could change a little bit with every telling. Did that make them not true? I like facts, that’s how my mind works, but stories offer truth in a slightly different way where the truth of the situation doesn’t always reside in the facts, but in the spirit of the telling.

This little book resounds with truth.

Books to Help Hone Your Writing Skills

Books to Help Hone Your Writing Skills

Someone recently asked me for advice in improving their writing skills – grammar, word choice and creativity, etcetera. Obviously, the best way to improve your writing is simply to read as much as you can and write regularly.

First off, we’ll take it as a given that you like to read. Otherwise, why would you be here? I have always believed that there is a book for every reader. Some people enjoy horror writers like Stephen King while some like romance writers such as Jayne Ann Krentz , and some prefer fantasy writers like Terry Pratchett. Some people don’t like books at all and instead prefer newspapers, magazines or blogs. To each his own, just read.

That takes us to writing regularly. It doesn’t have to be fiction. You could pick a different relative every few days and write a real, old-fashioned letter, or even a chatty e-mail. Older relatives who might not get out much would be particularly grateful to receive your letters. Write letters to people in the military service overseas. Start a journal, write down your memories from childhood or try your hand at essays about things in life that you are passionate about. Start a blog about something like that and you may have the chance to meet people who are like minded.

The point is to write. Writing regularly exercises your knowledge of the language. Look up words when you’re not sure of the spelling, check the grammar when you’re unsure of that. A wonderful little book to help you with all points of grammar usage, as it comes up, is A Writer’s Reference by Diana Hacker. I have had one of these little spiral bound reference books since the early nineties and have found it indispensible for every type of writing.

If you want to learn to write easily on any topic, try prompts. Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg and The Pocket Muse 2: Endless Inspiration for Writers by Monica Wood offer a wealth of prompts to get you writing. Pick one every day and set yourself a time limit – 10, 20 or 30 minutes, and just write. In the same vein, The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron has been used by people in many disciplines to free up their creativity. I used it one year as a twelve week course, reading a chapter each Sunday night, doing the assignments each week and writing the 3 pages of longhand “morning pages” every day. I believe the morning pages did me the most good, simply allowing me to write three pages every morning that had no rules. It taught me Anne Lamott’s concept of “shitty first drafts” before I ever read Bird by Bird, which was my first review on this blog.

One of the most widely read and praised basic, but indispensible, books on writing is the slim volume, The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White. Only 92 pages long, including the index, the authors cover elementary rules of usage and principles of composition as well as words and expressions commonly misused, and also make simple recommendations on style.

Those books will pretty much cover improving your grammar, word choice and creativity. If you’re already a writer and want to delve into books on honing your craft, or are just curious about what it takes to make a living at writing, there are two books have stood out for me so far. Lessons from a Lifetime of Writing by David Morrell was one of the first books on writing that I read. I understand this is now published as The Successful Novelist but I think the original title is more inviting to someone who really loves to write. It is not only instructive, but entertaining. On Writing by Stephen King is definitely more entertaining than instructive. It is subtitled “A Memoir of the Craft” and rightfully so.

Read and write, that's the long and short of it, but also the pleasure.