Ode to Eggplant
Your baskets are overflowing with eggplants these days, and in response to the queries of some, I feel compelled to explain the why and wherefore of this overabundance. There are three vegetables I grow in large quantities, all of which belong to the solanaceae, or nightshade, family – eggplant, peppers and tomatoes. In the case of the latter, great care is taken to avert disease and to continuously test different growing techniques, depending on timing (early, mid or late season) and location (open field or high tunnels). In any event, tomatoes require significant space and constant care. In the case of peppers and eggplant, it’s an altogether different story : blame it all on the tarnished plant bug (TPB for short), a ubiquitous pest that relishes pepper and eggplant flowers. When it attacks the flowers, in a matter of days it can slay generations of vegetables, creating huge harvest gaps. What’s an organic farmer to do, then? Plant far more than he/she actually needs and hope that the TPB attacks will be limited to 30 to 40% of the flowers, leaving enough mature fruit to fill your baskets.
Exceptionally this year, we’ve seen virtually no TPB in our fields – or at least not enough to cause any damage worth mentioning. Go figure. And so it is that we have plants bursting with blooms, each of which becomes a fruit which we have no choice but to harvest in order to preserve the overall health of the plant – letting them go to waste would be downright sacrilegious.
We will therefore be serving eggplant for a few weeks to come…
We’ve had to reorganise the warehouse – moving crates and boxes, freeing up passageways – to make room for our first Fall vegetables, our winter squash. On this Monday morning, we harvested them at dawn – spaghetti squash, buttercup and more. While we were at it, we also harvested our seeded watermelons, our favourites, perfectly sweet and gently perfumed. And the race is on for more fall cleaning – dictated in part by our green manure sowing schedule, but also by the upcoming méchoui, and a desire to have the farm look presentable. As always, I welcome the last days of August and the equilibrium they herald – a balance to be found not only in the balmy days and cool nights, but also in the very composition of our vegetable baskets, a harmonious blend of nightshades, leafy greens and root vegetables. I say this knowing that you may still find our eggplant portions generous, but as my yoga instructor is wont to say when she doesn’t want us to overdo it, ‘it’s the direction you are seeking that matters’…
Another summer basket awaits, the blueberries to be replaced by our first melon, a sweetly ripened cantaloupe. Mother Nature is still generous, so one has to get creative with eggplant and summer squash. In a not too distant future, there will come a time where neither will be found in our baskets…
August has begun as it is often wont to do, i.e. with hot days and cool nights, a clear reminder for us market farmers that we are already heading towards fall. I know, I know – we have to enjoy summer while it lasts, we who live in these northern climes where summers are so short and winters so long. In agricultural terms, though, the cooler nights also signal to the plants that they have to think of their progeny, and weeds heed that clarion call more than most, revving up for one last hurrah before they drop their seeds and are spent. Despite all this, your baskets will have corn and many other things to remind us that summer is still in full swing.
While our first zucchinis and cucumbers provided a foretaste of summer, this week’s offering of tomatoes and eggplant should convince you that summer has indeed arrived. Tomatoes and eggplant are my two favourite vegetables/fruits, the possibilities they open up are endless, and we will be serving them to you until the plants yield no more. Unlike the zukes and cukes, which we succession plant, our solanaceas offer a continuous harvest from the same plant which just keeps on giving, week after week, until the first frost.
The farm has abruptly tipped into summer, without warning or fanfare. Overnight, it seems, we’ve gone from rainy days and chilly nights to balmy weather with hints of the dog days of summer to come. Our solanaceae have suddenly regained vigor and strength, and our cool-weather-loving brassicas are even looking like they may bolt. For your market gardeners, all these signs are encouraging indicators of a morale-boosting return to normalcy in the fields. And yet we are ambivalent : these same signs herald the beginning of our annual, always epic, battle of the weeds – in which we will be engaged until Fall frosts bring the skirmishes to a definitive close. And so it is that last week ended in a flurry of hoe blades, as we took advantage of the warm sunny weather before rain scheduled to fall again later this week.
Just as we were beginning to despair, the sun finally appeared, and some heat, too. As we toured the fields today, Sunday, we felt Mother Nature bursting at the seams, impatient to make up for lost time. Like us, she is all too aware that summer is short in our northern climes and that a successful season means taking advantage of every minute of every hour of sunshine that the weather will allow. We’ve already had a few unwelcome visitors – potato beetles in our eggplants, cucumber beetles in our winter squash. Isn’t it early, you may ask – indeed it is, but climate change oblige, past is no longer prologue. They have arrived, and we’ll have to make do. Beetles notwithstanding, the season is finally launched, and we’re glad.
Three things we really like about the new guide : first and foremost, the emphasis placed on fresh vegetables; second, the importance accorded to the daily consumption of pulses (so sorry, Lise Ravary) and cereals; and third, the lesser relative importance of meat and dairy products in our daily diet.