Gardening by routine.

The change of seasons inspires both the artist and the gardener.

Painting by Vermont artist Gary Milek

Hello Everyone.

It’s the night before Thanksgiving, and while most people are brining a turkey, simmering cranberries or pureeing pumpkin for a pie, I am stacking clay pots into the garden shed. Small pots and large urn-sized pots that require a hand truck to move. The plants growing in them have long since curled up from frost, and the ceramic pots would crack if left outside all winter. This is the back side of gardening, those enjoyable end-of-the-season tasks that only the gardener sees or knows how to do.

Every year, the routine is a little different, but it usually takes the onset of a snowstorm to stir up a whirlwind of activity. Vermont is expecting a foot of snow starting at midnight, and while the folks at nearby Bromley and Stratton Mountain are pleased, it fills me with panic. I waited too long, and it’s now late in the day. With the headlamp shining through the dark, I make sure the garden furniture is undercover, cedar benches are stacked, and porch pillows are safely stored in the basement. Done.

Looking out at the empty landscape, it feels clean and ready for a new season to start. Without this routine of putting everything away, the joy of taking everything out again in spring might not be as satisfying.

Leaving behind one garden year and anticipating the next, the routine of it all, is what makes gardening a pleasure. It also inspires creativity in the garden, changing the plants and everything associated with the movable landscape. It hasn’t always been this way, however.  For nearly two decades, I tended a large garden, almost 10 acres, and launched my first cookbook, From the Cook’s Garden, featuring recipes from our family farm. During my first few years in my new landscape, I did not intend to grow a garden. The thought of starting again was overwhelming. Without a garden, I planned to focus on reading, entertaining, and possibly writing another book – because gardens take up a lot of time.

But looking out the window at the empty, abandoned landscape made me yearn for a garden. I could not sit back and do nothing with the yard.  That first year, I created a five-year plan on paper, starting with a bird’s eye view of the small plot, mapping out the house and driveway, the four cardinal directions, a water source, and immovable objects such as trees. Designing a garden on paper is far easier than in real life. And with all the designs I dreamed up that winter, my second book was born, The Complete Kitchen Garden.

Birds Eye View. The five-year plan, 20 years later.

When I pitched the book to my agent and a publisher in 2008, I was often asked what a kitchen garden is. “Is it an indoor garden or a hydroponic system on a windowsill?” they asked. (Horrors, I thought.) Then, I explained how it’s a fancy name for a vegetable garden near the kitchen door, smaller and more intimate, filled with tender greens, aromatic herbs, and select fruits harvested daily. Yet it can also become a way of life to engage all of your senses through a rich tapestry of colors, fragrance, and, ultimately, flavors. Now, everybody knows what a kitchen garden is and what it can do to enhance your landscape.

In the introduction, I wrote: “When you cultivate a kitchen garden, you are actively engaging with your source of food and integrating with your natural surroundings in a way that far surpasses the experience of purchasing food at the market.” Growing your food truly matters, even though it takes more time and thought. In invisible ways, you connect to the landscape and the food you eat. What you grow and how you prepare the food will nourish you in unexpected ways.

My five-year plan is still evolving. I like the familiarity of the routine that the end-of-the-season garden chores bring, knowing exactly how to stack the clay pots and hang tools from the rafters to fit everything into the small shed. What’s going through my mind as I do a final sweep of the yard are all the ways I plan to do it differently next year. The change of seasons allows me to think like an artist and a gardener and will get me through the winter months.

From my kitchen garden to yours,

Ellen Ecker Ogden

Vermont food and garden writer. Follow along on Instagram.

p.s. Are you ready to start planning next year’s garden? I teach an online kitchen design class with Longwood Gardens beginning January 8th. Sign up here.

Painting by Gary Milek.