Spring’s Healthy Harvest

ach winter, I eagerly await spring’s arrival. I know it means the garden will come alive and begin to offer up a bounty for my family’s plates: herbs to brighten up nearly every dish, good-for-you greens, and delicate yet piquant radishes.

Here, find information from nutritional content to planting tips for what I’m harvesting now.

Fresh Herbs

Being able to step outside your door or simply reach over to your windowsill and clip the herbs you need for recipes can be quite a thrill. Luckily, herbs are relatively easy to care for after they’ve been planted. Whether you sow them directly in your vegetable garden or grow them in containers indoors or out, they really are extremely accommodating. Most herbs require five to six hours of direct sunlight, although others like mint can handle partial shade. In general, the soil for herbs should vary from slightly dry to slightly moist. If you’re not sure, check for signs of under-watering (wilting leaves) or over-watering (brown or yellow leaf edges).

Mint. Spearmint is my favorite mint, and I’ve got a good amount growing in my garden. With ample sun and water, all mints grow exuberantly—that’s both a good and bad thing. A clump planted in the border of a bed will rampage in all directions, eventually squeezing out other plants. In fact, if left unchecked, mint can eventually choke itself out, using up all the nutrients in the soil. That’s why it’s wisest to plant it in a container.

In early spring, I dip into my big pot of spearmint and divide it, setting the divisions in smaller pots full of fresh potting soil and then giving most of the new plants away to friends. To the old stand of mint, I add a little organic plant food and fresh soil to replenish lost nutrients. Because mint doesn’t tend to breed true when grown from seed, division is really the only way to propagate any particular cultivar.

Mint leaves are easily dried on a screen, but I find it even simpler to wrap twine around a fresh bundle to dry. I store a few bound bundles in a small paper bag and remove the leaves as needed. Dried mint leaves will keep for a couple years if stored in a cool, dark place.

Though fresh mint leaves are preferred for making jellies and for garnishes, you will need to steep twice as many fresh leaves as dried ones for mint tea. I steep a rounded teaspoon of fresh-picked leaves in a mug, but you can use more or less per your taste. In hot weather, I like cold mint tea. Steep a large handful of leaves in a pitcher of cool water until the water tastes minty, then discard the leaves and refrigerate.

Menthol, the compound that gives mint its characteristic flavor, is more concentrated in peppermint (Mentha piperata) than spearmint (Mentha spicata), and can aid in digestion and soothe the stomach. (But avoid mint if your symptoms are due to gastroesophageal reflux disease, as it may worsen them.) The crisp scent also has aromatherapy applications. Spearmint tea, on the other hand, seems to have some unique effects, including lowering male hormones in women, which may help control the growth of unwanted facial hair.

Mint tea is at once stimulating and calming. Its distinctive flavor leaves the palate satisfied and the mouth feeling clear and clean. Because it grows so prolifically, eventually you’ll have enough mint in your summer garden to steep pots of it through the winter.

Cilantro. Barring a catastrophe, I always have cilantro on hand, as it’s one of my favorite herbs. Cilantro (Coriandrum sativum) is the green plant. Coriander is the seed of the cilantro plant that spices up pickles, pastrami, and curries. If you grow cilantro and let it go to seed, not only will you have coriander for cooking, you will also have plenty of seed to grow next spring’s cilantro crop. I grow this herb in the cool seasons. It will bolt, that is go to seed, in the hotter months.

Cilantro is easy to grow. The seeds just need moisture and warmth to germinate, but be patient; they take their time. I germinate them in seed cups and transplant the seedlings. You can easily start cilantro seeds in potting soil in small pots as well, then keep the pots on a bright windowsill or the back porch. As for soil conditions, cilantro doesn’t seem to be too picky.

Cilantro provides thiamin, zinc, dietary fiber, and vitamins A, C, E and K. It also has trace amounts of riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6, folate, pantothenic acid, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorous, potassium, copper, and manganese. Coriander seed is well established as a medicinal herb for aiding digestion and for its antiinflammatory properties. It plays an important role in Ayurvedic medicine, the traditional healing system of India.

Spinach

I grow spinach (Spinacia oleracea) at home in the cool winter months, since it will bolt quickly in hot, dry weather. In colder climates, over-wintering varieties are great options. They can be planted in late summer or early fall. Covering the plants with small translucent enclosures (called cloches) will hold them through the winter. Then, come spring, you’ll have your first harvest.

Plant spinach in a sunny, open location. It will tolerate light shade in the hotter months, and some shade will prevent it from becoming sunburned. It prefers a rich, moist bed, so be sure to amend your soil with organic matter. Keep your plants moist, but avoid sogginess.

To harvest spinach, simply cut young leaves with a pair of scissors. Spinach can be frozen but I’ve found it doesn’t keep too well in the refrigerator, so harvest only what you plan to eat right away or freeze. Spinach contains nearly twice the iron of other leafy greens, making it one of the best plant-based sources of this nutrient. It’s also high in folic acid, potassium, and magnesium, as well as vitamin K, carotenes, and vitamin C. And this relative of the beet is one of the richest dietary sources of lutein, important for healthy eyes and the prevention of macular degeneration.

Radishes

A cool-season crop, small, delicate radishes are a perfect springtime snack. They are wonderfully crunchy, and their spicy bite clears the palate. Though the root contains a great deal of vitamin C, a radish top actually contains nearly six times as much as the root. Fresh tops are most nutritious raw; try adding them to salads.

Some of my favorite radishes, Cherry Belle and French Breakfast, are spring/ summer cultivars. They have a mild flavor and are ready in as little as three weeks—that’s as close to instant gratification as vegetable gardening gets. Sow the seeds after the danger of frost has passed in early spring and then again in late summer for a fall harvest. There are winter options available as well, including Long Black Spanish and China Rose; these can be planted in midsummer for autumn and winter eating. Such varieties typically grow much larger than spring radishes.

Radishes like a well-drained soil with an open, sunny exposure that is low in nitrogen. Too much compost or manure will give you radishes with huge tops and scrawny roots. Growing them in too shady a spot will also lead to disappointment: The tops will grow but the roots won’t develop. Sprinkling a few seeds in your garden weekly in the growing season will allow you to enjoy crop after crop.

I usually sow radish seeds between carrot and parsnip seeds, a technique called intercropping (growing two crops that mature at different rates in the same bed). The radishes grow quickly enough to avoid interference with the carrots. I also plant them between lettuce rows.

Once mature, radishes should be picked and eaten quickly for best flavor. If they are left in the ground too long, they get woody and extremely spicy, and will often attract aphids. If you notice white streaks through the top of the red skin, this is superficial damage from a snail and is nothing to worry about.

On My Bookshelf

My friend Michael J. Balick, PhD, one of the foremost ethnobotanical researchers, has written a comprehensive, readable, and beautifully illustrated herbal resource: Rodale’s 21st Century Herbal: A Practical Guide for Healthy Living Using Nature’s Most Powerful Plants. He is well qualified to introduce you to the world of herbs and acquaint you with their history, botany, their uses in cooking, and their healing properties, as well as to give advice on growing them and designing your own herb garden. In the book, he lists the best herbs for different growing conditions as well as suggestions on which herbs to grow from seed, from cuttings, or from division. The illustrations bring gardening steps clearly to life, and the book also includes a seasonal “to-do” list.