THE SELF-SUFFICIENT ORGANIC GARDEN

By spring, the Elliotts are weary of eating from the root cellar, so they grow French sorrel for an early crop before other things are ready to harvest.

Following closely on the heels of sorrel, they begin harvesting parsnips, kale, and spinach, which have overwintered in cold frames from seed sown during the previous growing season.

During hot, dry weather, they water their seedlings daily. When plants are mature, they receive weekly waterings if rain hasn’t quenched their thirst.

For blight on tomatoes and eggplants, the Elliotts apply copper sulfate. Even more important, they trim affected foliage weekly. Diseased leaves never go into the compost.

They use fish emulsion and seaweed for fertilizer, applying it to seedlings during transplanting. Heavy-feeding crops such as onions and corn receive weekly doses of fertilizer, while other crops are fertilized every two weeks. But fertilizer aside, compost is key; the Elliotts make as much compost as possible.

Comfrey tea works as a potassium-rich fertilizer for fruit and flower production. In July, the Elliotts cut back the comfrey, put it in a garbage can, and fill the can with water, leaving it to ferment for a week. Then they dilute it 2:1 to water crops such as potatoes, pumpkins, and squash. To save space, pumpkins grow beneath the corn.

In August, they plant spinach, kale, mustard, and lettuce for October harvest.

Cool-season Brassicas such as broccoli and cabbage are vulnerable to club root, a common fungal disease. The Elliotts’ solution: Rotate crops religiously and apply plenty of lime to combat the problem.

Living so close to the woods, the Elliotts have had to develop novel strategies for dealing with hungry animals. Porcupines have been pestering their fruit trees; their solution is to place a stovepipe around each trunk. A 7-foot deer fence has proved to be 100% effective in keeping deer from entering the garden. —T.M.

From the very beginning, the couple was happy to remain off the grid. With Scott and Helen Nearing’s book, Living the Good Life (1954), as guidance, the two pioneers built their house by hand. Using their rental home as a workshop, they cut materials with power tools there and transported them to the site. They also tackled the garden, clearing a 20-by-20-foot plot out of the woods, which was backbreaking work. “Basically, we had more rocks than soil,” Bill says. Given only the thinnest topsoil blanketing the ledge, they made compost and brought in the amendments. They learned how to grow vegetables on a plot at a community garden near their rental, visited the Nearings in Harborside, Maine (“and woke up to women doing naked handstands,” Eileen remarks wryly), and got pointers on preserving the harvest and compost production.

That was 37 years ago, and their garden has become even more focused with time. Now in their early seventies (though you’d never guess it to look at them), the Elliotts still park their car a good eighth of a mile from the house and walk in (often with a cart filled with groceries or other provisions), past a series of beautifully orchestrated plantings. They maintain all manner of ornamental gardens filled with arcane shrubs and rare peonies that kindle sensibilities beyond their tastebuds.

But no place is as hard-working as the vegetable garden, designed around a series of raised beds built to adjust for the sloping ridge and to create flat spaces to plant. Another advantage: “Raised beds hold water better than open ground,” Bill observes. (Gasfueled pumps assist with watering.) Meanwhile, large-footprint crops such as corn, peas, squash, and tomatoes are planted directly in the ground. The garden furnishes cucumbers for pickling (57 pints during one spectacular season!), as well as cans of blueberries, gooseberries, pears, tomato sauce, chutneys, and the green and yellow beans that line the shelves of their root cellar, along with potatoes, parsnips, pumpkins, onions, garlic, cabbage, winter squash, and other essentials. “When the ground has thawed,” Eileen says, “we’re in there full-time.” but don’t mulch the beds themselves, because the straw proves to be an open invitation to voles. “And anyway, I like to weed,” Eileen says.

OPPOSITE : A colorful summer harvest. In addition to vegetables, the Elliotts grow a wide range of fruits and berries, herbs, and ornamental flowers, trees, and shrubs. ABOVE : Bright blooms line the path to the herb garden, where a brick walkway leads to a sundial at center stage.

The garden’s first order is to provide a year’s worth of food, “but we go for tasty,” Eileen says. So the tomatoes tend to be heirlooms (their favorites: ‘Cherokee Purple’, ‘Japanese Black Trifele’, and ‘Purple Russian’), and the Elliotts don’t shy away from experimentation if it might promise a novel taste sensation. This year, edamame soybeans were on trial, but a mouse stole most of the harvest; they plan to try again. To maximize efficiency, they rotate crops, so when they’ve harvested the early peas, that slot goes to members of the cabbage family, which benefit from the nitrogen left by the peas. They lay straw mulch on the paths,

There’s practicality here, but also poetry. Poppies are allowed to seed themselves in all over the place—just for the beauty they lend. The couple’s favorite variety of soup pea is ‘Blauwschokkers’, simply because it has burgundy pods. Ditto for ‘Tiger Eye’ beans—they’re outrageously goodlooking. And long ago, Bill gave in to Eileen’s penchant for sneaking dahlias, peonies, clematis, and all sorts of other companion bloomers into the vegetable garden to feed the soul— even though flowers are plentiful elsewhere. Today, the garden has grown to two acres. “Both of us are expansive people,” Bill admits. Most of the added space is focused on ornamentals—although herbs, fruits, and berries are sprinkled around.

“From the start we figured that we’re hard-working people, and we can do this,” Eileen recalls.

“There’s no such thing as low-maintenance gardening,” Bill adds. “It’s all hard work and time-consuming. But we’re completely drawn to it.”

Yes, they have to heat the water for washing, and the laundry is done in a hand-crank machine. Absolutely, somebody needs to stay home and feed the woodstove. But with a root cellar full of pickles and all the jams and jellies anybody could ever consume—life is good. They certainly weren’t the only back-to-the-landers inspired to homestead in the 1970s, but they’re among the movement’s few survivors.

“Most people didn’t stick it out,” Bill admits. But what started as their only option is now a life they wouldn’t have any other way.