The end of a season, then the end of a year and the end of all the fine things we’ve grown during the year: for me the holidays represent the last hurrah of my garden, but it’s no cause for sadness. Quite the opposite, with unexpected treats coming indoors just as I’m feeling too housebound, and I’m reminded why I enjoy having Spring in my sightings.
Photos: 24 December, the celery is alive and well! The next day: time to harvest, out from under a foot of snow in the Alps.
Each end of year in the Alps brings its own version of the annual winter holiday surprise. At the end of 2006 I had magnificent bouquets of dried grasses and herbs to place in every room. This October, after too little sunshine and too much rain they looked like an Equatorial tribe stranded at the North Pole, weak and unhappy, so I left most of them outdoors to brown and dry with the weather.
The Christmas gift from my garden this December was unexpected food and trimmings for holiday meals.
The first surprise was the celery. It occurred to me when the stores
closed 24 December that I hadn’t bought any, and I like celery in my
bread and onion stuffing (aka, dressing) for the Christmas turkey. I
took a short Swiss Army shovel out to the vegetable patch and dug down
about a foot to where I thought the celery had been growing. One of
four plants had been caught by the surprise arrival of several
centimetres of snow in mid-November and I hadn’t seen it since.
There it was, frozen in a perfectly fresh state. I quickly threw the
snow back over it so I could use it the next day when I was ready to
stuff the turkey.
On Christmas Day, while the rest of the world went skiing, I stomped
around the garden in my boots, digging out tri-coloured sage, thyme,
rosemary and even tarragon, all looking dry and/or frozen above the
half metre of snow but with healthy fresh stalks snuggling down under:
a great reminder that snow not only gives slow-drip watering to plants
over the winter, but it insulates them from icy air.
The sun came out, giving the celery and herbs a chance to thaw and drain a bit on an old wooden caf