Fit Fare

My, that’s a mouthful, isn’t it? I’m an avid NPR listener, and while I didn’t hear the interview that Renee Montagne did with the author, William Alexander, I did hear several letters that listeners wrote to NPR about the interview, which prompted me to go back and listen to the interview and then buy the book.

I’m NOT a gardener; in fact, last year I managed to kill the spearmint that I planted. (N.B., spearmint is nearly impossible to kill. It can become almost a nuisance plant for some gardeners, because it spreads rapidly.) But that doesn’t mean that I don’t like plants, on the contrary, every year when I still lived at home, I would help my mom plant annuals. When I was newly married, my husband and I lived in an apartment, where no plants were possible. But we moved in the winter of 2004 to a condo with two patios that is located in a heavily wooded area, and ever since, I’ve been full of ideas about growing herbs and tomatoes, as well as flowers. So this book caught my attention because the author is an avid gardener and I thought I might get some useful tips.

What I got instead was a laugh-out-loud funny narrative that reads more like a novel than non-fiction. If insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, then I must conclude that gardeners everywhere are nuts, if they’re anything like Bill Alexander. Now before you send me nasty comments and e-mails, allow me to point out that I don’t mean that in any sort of defamatory way, rather I’m very amused. Indeed, after reading the book, the insanity is as contagious as any infectious disease I’ve ever run into, because the book made me want to have my own 2000 square foot garden.
This post is part of the Well Fed Network’s “Celebrating Summer” Series.

Alexander and his wife bought a fixer-upper home in New York State’s Hudson River Valley and lived there for quite some time before deciding to turn the patch of land alongside the house into a dream garden, patterned after many coffee table books that they’d spent happy hours pouring through. The book chronicles the trials with their landscape architect/contractor team who disappeared after doing a small amount of excavation, to problems with deer, groundhogs, and pests of every stripe and color. The title comes from a complex cost equation that Alexander did after one particularly frustrating summer, when he harvested just 19 of his heirloom Brandywine tomatoes. Between organic fertilizer, the electric fencing to keep out the deer and rodents, the stakes to keep the tomato plants upright, and his labor, he discovered that each of the beautiful (and delicious) 19 tomatoes cost him $64.

His eye for detail makes it easy to picture the garden, and his helpful suggestions about how to deal with each pest he’s encountered over the years made me enjoy the book.

One of the things that bugged me about it was his repeated emphasis on his “organic” methods. While I don’t disagree that one of the great things about growing your own food is that you know EXACTLY what sorts of fertilizer and pesticides are used, in my opinion, he takes the desire to be organic a bit too far. Truly organic farming is difficult at best and frustrating at worst. The USDA adopted standards for organic labeling, but labels in the US tend to be more confusing than helpful; witness the new “trans-fat” labels that you see everywhere. There’s been some recent controversy in the news about Wal-Mart taking aggressive steps to enter the organic market, prompting organic farmers to worry about shifting standards. Buyer beware, indeed. But Alexander carries that “organic” status as a badge of pride throughout the book, which got annoying after about 3 chapters. And I was downright gleeful when he had to admit defeat over his apple trees, which couldn’t be convinced to grow organic apples. In the end, he was forced to spray the trees with an Agway broad-spectrum orchard spray.

If you are an avid gardener, I highly recommend the book. If you are looking for a good summer read, this is a much better alternative to some of the chick-lit trash that’s out there.

As I said above, the insanity is contagious. Over the summer, I will be attempting to grow tomatoes of my own, something I haven’t done since I was about 18, and that’s been more years ago than I care to admit. My mother and I purchased a tomato plant at a local garden center that was supposed to work well on a deck in a pot. It didn’t. We ended up with about 3 very small tomatoes, which didn’t taste great. This year, after consulting with a small, family owned local grower, I purchased 12 tomato plants, not heirlooms, but an unusual varietal called Pink Girl. According to the garden center, these are a lower acid tomato, which should not cause acid reflux sufferers any discomfort. As we move through the summer months, I will post one article each month (with pictures) of how I’m doing with growing my own tomatoes. I thought about growing them from seed, but by the time that idea occurred to me, it was too late in the season to plant if I wanted home-grown tomatoes before oh, about December 20th. I will use widely available fertilizers and pesticides on one group of plants (read from any home-improvement store) and attempt organic methods on another group of plants. The plants are on my patio waiting for a pot to transplant them into, and they are delicate and beautiful, but no blossoms yet. I’m really excited about the project and look forward to reporting back on my progress at the end of June.