Long bean plant

Copyright © 2025 by Linda Ziedrich. All rights reserved.

All photographs are by the author.

Icon art by The Noun Project: Adriansyah (pancake), Arkinasi (lemonade), Courtney Baker (romaine lettuce), dDara (poppy), Deemak Daksina (jar), Edwin PM (sorrel), Edy Subiyanto (mint), Eskak (tomato), Giangiacomo Galliani (wok), IYIKON (quince), Juraj Sedlák (grape leaf), Kmg Design (parsnip, soy beans, strawberry), N.Style (leaf grape), Olena Panasovska (string beans), P Thanga Vignesh (corn), Pronto Illustration (lettuce), Rahmat (soup), sentya Irma (lavender), Singlar (melon), Smashing Stocks (walnut), Soetarman Atmodjo (cup), Savannah Vize (fennel), Teewara soontorn (potato slices)

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ISBN 978-1-64326-231-4

eISBN: 978-1-64326-426-4

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

To my blog readers, with thanks for all you’ve taught me

CONTENTS

Cover

Copyright Page

Title Page

Dedication

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Sweet Violets

Radical Ways with adishes

Angelica, Bitter and Sweet

Bamboo for Dinner

Collards for Year-Round Greens

Blue-Fruited Honeysuckle

Strawberries from the Woods

Walnuts, Green and Ripe

Sour Sorrel

Kale Buds and Collard Tops

Artichokes, Succulent Thistle Buds

Leaves of the Vine

Petite, Perpetual Garlic Chives

Green Garbanzos

Magenta-Leafed Orach

The Singular Makah Ozette Potato

The Onion That Walks

Black and Blue Tomatoes

The Longest Beans

Shiso, Red and Green

The Mucilaginous Melon

Maize for Meal

Chicory Reborn

Homemade Chicory Coffee

The Many Joys of Fennel

Tasting Lavender

Scarlet Runners for Winter Meals

Sweet Parsnips

Poppies for Seed

Beets for Greens

Forgotten but Flavorful Quince

Oca, the Tart Little Tuber

Jerusalem Fartichokes

Notes

Further Reading

Seed and Plant Suppliers

Index

About the Author

Navigation

Cover

Start of Frontmatter

Title page

Dedication

Contents

Preface

Start of Content

Sweet Violets

Start of Backmatter

Further Reading

Seed and Plant Suppliers

Index

About the Author

Page List

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Preface

This book reflects forty-five years of gardening experience and experimentation. My life as a gardener began in Palo Alto, California, where, in the backyard of a rental house, my then brand-new husband, Robert, and I sowed seeds of many kinds of vegetables and ended up with nothing but mustard.

During six subsequent years in Somerville, Massachusetts, I tended a community garden plot, took a Master Gardener course, and, for two seasons, ran the city’s community garden program. For another six years, in Ben Lomond, California, I kept a big vegetable garden and cared for an assortment of fruit trees as well.

This helped prepare me for life on a small farm in Oregon’s Willamette Valley—a few miles west of West Scio—where my serious horticultural work began. I set about restoring depleted, compacted soil for a vegetable garden, and Robert and I replanted the orchard, which had been cut to the ground. He built a greenhouse for raising vegetable starts. With three growing children to feed, I set out about one hundred tomato plants each year and half as many pepper plants. And I planted more and more unusual food plants, both fruits and vegetables, and both annuals and perennials. Using produce from the Ben Lomond and Scio gardens I wrote three cookbooks, Cold Soups, The Joy of Pickling, and The Joy of Jams, Jellies, and Other Sweet Preserves. The last especially emphasized uncommon fruits, such as quinces, red and black currants, elderberries, and even black nightshade.

In 2015, with the children grown and gone, Robert and I returned to city life. Near downtown Lebanon, Oregon, we bought a little Craftsman house on a quarter-acre lot. Robert built a greenhouse, again, and he made raised beds for vegetables. I planted fruit trees in the front yard. The experiments continued, though now I needed to choose varieties more carefully and to sow crops consecutively, never leaving ground bare. Eventually I expanded into the city’s first municipal community garden, where the all-day sun allows corn and melons to thrive.

Although this book is part cookbook, it focuses more on the garden than the kitchen. The plants included are little known or underappreciated. Their edible parts are seldom available in grocery stores. But these plants tend to be particularly useful for home gardeners, over large temperate regions. The plants I’ve chosen have interesting pasts, too. You can’t really know a garden plant without growing it, but each chapter should give you a thorough introduction to the plant’s history, growing and harvest requirements, and uses. I hope that this book will inspire you to try growing some of these plants and that at least a few will become essential to your life as a gardener and as a cook.

The thirty-three chapters are arranged chronologically, according to time of harvest, from early spring through winter. Each includes a recipe to get you started incorporating the plant in your family’s diet.