CORNWALL, Ontario – It is the middle of summer and there are free pickings to be had in Cornwall.
The gardens planted by Transition Cornwall+ Food Action Group along with families in the community at the Fire Station, in front of the Justice Building and along Montreal Road by the Police Station are full of healthy vegetables and herbs ready for anyone to harvest. There is everything from tomatoes, to fresh green beans, chard and kale as well as basil, thyme, dill, chives and much more.
If you are not a gardener, it is not always obvious on how to pick these vegetables or indeed what to do with some of them. Tomatoes in the gardens are just turning ripe – either a bright red or deep yellow in colour. To harvest, just lightly hold each fruit and give it a light twist and it will come away from the stem. Green beans ready for picking should be firm and evenly thick and crisp but not showing the bean seeds swelling inside. Again just pinch the bean right at the end where it joins the stem and it will come away cleanly.
Swiss chard might not be known to everyone. In the gardens it is either with green, red, orange or yellow stems. It is best to cut the stems just an inch or so above the ground. If you pick only a few outside leaves from each plant, new leaves will soon grow up, giving people fresh greens all summer. After washing the chard, the leaves can be chopped up and used in salads or lightly steamed or boiled and when the stems are just soft, serve mixed with a pat of butter and sprinkling of salt and pepper. Kale, known for its healthy properties can also be used in salads or as a cooked vegetable or in soups. Again just cut off a few leaves from each plant to allow regrowth over the summer. The younger leaves are best for salads. To prepare after washing the leaves, fold leave over longwise and cut off the central stem.
Beautiful huge plants in the gardens right now are summer squash. They produce both male and female flowers. The male flowers can be picked and eaten while the female ones still produce squash. You can identify the male ones as they don’t have pistils, grow on long stalks, and are slender, while the female flowers have bulbous ends. After picking the flowers and checking inside for insects, remove the pistil and wash and dry them. They can be eaten raw in salads, sautéed, or stuffed and fried. The squash vegetable can be picked by twisting off the stem, washed, peeled and prepared in numerous ways, such as cutting up to boil or fry, or the centre of larger ones can be hollowed to stuff with meat or stuffing and baked.
Herbs make any meal more delicious. Basil is a wonderful plant whose leaves smell of freshness. Pinch leaves from the centre of the plant down to a grouping of two leaves or more, not leaving a bare stem. Again this encourages plants to regrow new shoots and leaves. The washed picked leaves can be chopped up and used with sliced fresh tomatoes, doused lightly with olive oil and if you wish balsamic vinegar and small chunks of mozzarella or feta cheese, salt and pepper. Or it can be used with any cooked vegetable or in salads.
Thyme (at the Montreal Road police station garden), washed and chopped, can be used in a variety of ways, such as added to grilled meat or cooked vegetables for a delicious taste. Young chive leaves, again a few cut from the plant, can be washed, cut up and used with boiled, or roasted potatoes or in a potato salad.
You can use two parts of the dill which is growing in the Justice Building garden at the back. The flowers are now turning into seeds. Cut and at home hang upside down until the seeds are dry and formed. The seeds can used crushed or used whole and added when cooking vegetables or in salad dressings or pickles. The leaf tendrils of the dill plant can be washed and used in soups or stews.
So you are invited to visit these gardens and take something home to eat. These are your community’s gardens. All that is asked is that you leave something for others to enjoy too. The Transition Cornwall+ Food Action group would like to thank the Fire Station personnel in particular, the City Parks and Landscaping staff and other volunteers for keeping the gardens watered in this very hot dry summer.
