Glimpse Of The Garden—

In The Garden Of Eating

By Nancy K. Crevier

“A Glimpse Of The Garden” is an ongoing series focusing on the heart of a gardener’s work — a special spot, an extraordinary plant, a place of respite, or a place that evokes a heartfelt memory. What is down the garden path of your friends and neighbors? What is down your garden path?

Cindy Miller’s garden is a hodge-podge of flowers and edibles, with huge hyssop plants towering above raised beds filled with tomatoes, peppers, and red swiss chard, and Mexican sunflowers nodding yellow heads next to a row of tall, feathery asparagus plants.

Red zinnias and cannas, and heart-shaped caladium leaves with centers of a softer shade of red are all purposely interspersed in the vegetable plots to attract bees. Where red flowers do not bloom, Ms Miller and her gardening partner, John Bobowski, have placed red plastic cups on tall poles to tempt the pollinators into the garden.

“I used to just grow flowers, but now I lean toward vegetables,” said Ms Miller. “I like sustainable living, knowing my food sources, and having all organic food, as much as possible, that I’ve grown myself,” she said. She also realized quickly after moving to her current home, seven years ago, that it would be an ongoing battle with the deer that wanted to dine on the flowers that bloomed along the driveway.

“So I moved a lot of them into my original garden plot. I just decided I didn’t want to fight the deer every year,” she said.

The original garden is a plot approximately 10 feet by 20 feet, and along with purple coneflowers, cannas, sedum, sunflowers and caladium, Ms Miller grows lettuce, asparagus, potatoes, and herbs there now. The lettuce grows all season long, shaded by a row of tall astilbe flowers, and rosemary, oregano, thyme, chives, and lovage sprawl within a three-foot tall raised bed at one end of the garden. A separate garden, outside of the vegetable plot, is home to the vigorously-growing mint plants that will provide Ms Miller with a year’s worth of mint tea, when dried.

“Potatoes like lots of deep soil,” said Ms Miller, and to accommodate that need in Connecticut’s rocky soil, she has planted her potatoes in soil-filled towers of stacked tires and deep buckets.

Four years ago, Ms Miller and Mr Bobowski decided to expand the garden to accommodate their desire to grow more edibles. The main section, fenced in layers of chicken wire and deer fencing, like the rest of the garden, is close to 20 feet by 20 feet. Four raised beds within it host peas, chard, tomatoes, red and green basil, peppers, and beets. Bordering the edges of the garden, the fronds of horseradish and mustard greens flop in the late afternoon sun. Nearby, yellow and zucchini squash and cucumber plants meander across the pathway, and Chinese cabbage, rhubarb, and collard greens  line up behind the rows of San Marzano and Beefsteak tomato plants.

The paths are heavily mulched, but embedded here and there with bits of colorful pottery and tiles.

“I like to recycle things,” said Ms Miller, pointing out an overturned futon frame in one raised bed that serves as a support for peas and other viney plants. The pole beans crawl happily up a six-foot tall branch that fell during a storm, and which Ms Miller repurposed by sticking it firmly into the ground along the fence line.

A small shade garden is located through a wrought iron gate off of the main garden. There, Ms Miller and Mr Bobowski have planted lettuce, celery, onions and greens that prefer a cooler spot. There are flowers too, lots of black-eyed Susans, deep green hosta, and sedum that rest the eye when one takes a break on the wooden bench beneath the branches of a small tree.

“It’s a wonderful spot when it’s really hot out,” said Ms Miller, “to just sit on the bench and cool off.”

She has become adept, since expanding the garden, at preserving her bounty. “I freeze things, can, dry herbs, and make pickles,” she said, “and I have made dandelion wine. It’s healthier, and delicious, if you are going to have a glass of wine,” she said. What she doesn’t grow, she is often able to trade for with other gardening friends, and that is one of the other pleasures of her garden, said Ms Miller.

“I love to have people just come over and wander through my garden and spend time here. It’s very peaceful, I’m told,” she said. In past years, she even opened up her garden plots to city dwellers without a piece of ground of their own, an experiment she may try again in the future, she said.

She tries to make use of as much of the edible parts of a plant as possible, said Ms Miller. From roots and stems to leaves, fruits and seeds, if it is usable, it gets eaten.

“I make smoothies out of so many things. I make rhubarb smoothies that are great, just sweetened a little. Or zucchini or collard smoothies, with some almond milk, make nutritious drinks and are so good. I use the beet greens to make juice. From the tomatoes, I make sauces and salsas and tomato juice.  I’ve been making a raw Swiss chard salad for my friends that they just love. Vegetables are so good for us, energetically,” she said. “I’m very much into helping people thing about how to incorporate what they are growing into their daily lives,” said Ms Miller.

“Gardening, to me, is so relaxing and therapeutic. It gives me great joy to walk out here in the morning with a cup of coffee and just mill around. It’s so nice,” she said, “to witness nature doing her thing.”