Summer Growing 2024: Nephew Edition

Food-growing, kitchen-loving nephews share their bounty

It’s a challenge keeping up with the nephew harvests and their kitchen efforts to feed themselves and their families. Am I biased? Nah, they’re straight-up gifted.

(above, Marc writes: Brussels with pumpkin flowers plus chives, two types of basil, rosemary, thyme, and lavender, all but the Brussels from our garden.)

Trev sent the pic above of freshly picked Malabar spinach, a tropical leafy green named after a coastal region in southwestern India. It is botanically not a true spinach yet resembles it. Here I’m pasting in a pic of ours. It’s mineral-y, substantial, out of control, and gosh does it love the heat.

Below, Trev’s Malabar spinach salad with pecans, pears, and goat cheese.

Marc says: Looking extra fiery…a bumper crop of Prairie Fire tomatoes we’ve been sharing with the neighbors.

I asked the nephews for their stories a bit late in the season for Dustin, who grows in Nashville (which heats up fast in spring). He wrote at end of July: The garden is definitely in a recovery phase. We had brutal June/July heat. Lettuce probably thrived the best this year. Romaine and leaf lettuce came early. We tried a new heat resistant type called slow bolt that just went to seed, but lived up to its name. 

Had a decent run with tomatoes and still more to come. Cherokee Purple are my favorite, just picked an Orange Jubliee, plenty of cherry and chocolate cherry tomatoes. We are in my favorite part of summer: BLT season! I've probably made 15 BLTs this month with our kale/lettuce and homemade pickles (one of my fav meals). Cucumbers always struggle, but I may get a few more. I grew some white pickling ones and they are fun. Shishito and thai peppers look good. Somehow we ended up with a lot of sauce tomatoes, san marzano and super sauce. Been making extra pico and guac quite a bit lately. Jalapeños are finally coming.

Dustin speaks for all our garden frustrations when he says: Green beans are 8 ft tall and strung up perfectly and never put off one bean. Such is life 😂 

Via Trevor, who grows just west of Chicago, Melanzana rossa di rotonda eggplants.

Here, his roasted Melanzanas with feta yogurt, pine nuts, and Aleppo flakes.

Marc writes from his Chicago garden: pollen party!

And fresh-picked from the garden…(ed note: look how happy his pepper plant is in its container).

Also via Marc: all picked end of July. Cast iron fried, seasoned with black garlic, salt, and pepper. No chickens in the big yard so that’s the only thing that came from elsewhere.

Good enough to eat.

Trev’s hot sauce, at left ghostly jalapeño and primero red habanero. At right Bulgarian carrot and criolla sella.

Row 7 Teagan lettuce harvest at Trevor’s…

Marc wonders: Does this look edible or just ornamental…?

Each of these gardens is unique in location, sun exposure, moisture, and soil. What grows (or doesn’t) vigorously for us here in Southwest Michigan doesn’t always match up with the nephews’ results.

Just as were were going to publish, Trev came in from the yard and sent this picture. His peppers are on fire…

Here’s his rundown: Shishitos at 12 o’clock and banana peppers at three. Then clockwise it’s Primero red, buena mulata, ghostly jalapeño, habanero, Aji Amarillo, criolla sella, red Serrano, lemon drop, sugar rush peach, and to complete the outside burning bush. Inside is Bulgarian carrot at 12, the red ghost (on accident), aji fantasy, aji chombo, aji Guyana. On the very inside there’s a single white habanero, a single aji mango, and a few aji Cristal.

Picking this bounty from our garden this morning, I thought of this from Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations: “Never forget that it takes very little to live a fulfilled and happy life.” Though I would note this seems like the opposite of very little. Nicely done, nephews. Keep those garden stories coming…