How the Kitchen Garden Feeds the Ranch Through Summer

The kitchen garden behind the main house started in 2016 as four raised beds on the south-facing slope below the porch. It has grown since then, and through July and August it supplies most of the vegetables that go to the table. Here is how it works.

What the garden produces ¶

The beds are planted in late May after the risk of frost has passed, which in the foothills can run into the first week of June in a cold year. The main crops are tomatoes, zucchini, green beans, winter squash, kale, and a rotating selection of salad greens. Potatoes go in a separate bed below the main garden and come up in August.

By mid-July the garden is producing enough to supply most of the vegetable component of meals. By August it is producing more than the kitchen can easily use, which is when Thomas starts putting things up for winter: tomato sauce, pickled beans, roasted squash in the freezer.

How the garden fits into the kitchen ¶

The ranch kitchen is not a restaurant kitchen. It cooks for a small number of people and the menu is shaped by what is available rather than the other way around. In August, if the zucchini is coming in fast, guests eat zucchini fritters. If the tomatoes are ripe, there is a tomato salad at lunch and a slow-cooked sauce at supper.

Guests who are interested in the garden are welcome to walk through it. Thomas is usually out there in the early morning or late afternoon and is happy to talk about what is growing.

The cold frame and the shoulder seasons ¶

A small cold frame on the east side of the garden extends the season at both ends. Seedlings go in there in March, and in September it keeps salad greens going for a few extra weeks after the main beds have been cleared. It is not a greenhouse and it does not heat, but it provides enough frost protection to make a difference in the foothills climate.

The garden is at its best right now, in August. Guests this month are eating well, and the kitchen is making the most of it while it lasts.