Green Garlic & Strawberries

On the dissonance of seasonal eating

It’s June. The sun is finally out and the weather is warming up. The landscape is a lush green, the rivers on both sides of Schooley’s Mountain rushing hard thanks to spring rains. Time to enjoy that cornucopia of locally grown food in the Garden State…right? Every farm-to-table restaurant, food magazine, social media influencer, farmers’ market, and supermarket says so. But if you know a farmer, or if you pay close attention to seasonal eating in northern New Jersey, you know that we’re not quite there yet. The cool, wet spring is making for a slow start this year—although the rain is welcome and much-needed after last fall’s drought.

I know we’re all eager for summer, but if a vendor at your farmers’ market is selling corn (really?) right now, then it’s coming from Florida at best. And there’s nothing wrong with that! I bought some to grill last week and it was tasty. But my local farmers who sell only what they grow are at a disadvantage. Most customers don’t understand where their food comes from, and the effort that goes into growing it. They’re used to having every kind of vegetable available all the time, so a farmer selling greens, radishes, scapes, and potatoes in June feels disappointing. But it’s not tomato season yet!

Some of this I know from being a longtime member and trustee with the Community Supported Garden at Genesis Farm. Some because I’ve been gardening for 17 years. And the rest because I grew up with frugal parents and grandparents who cared about food but let nothing go to waste.

It wasn’t until I got serious about eating locally—thanks in large part to my beloved year-round CSA—that I started to understand spring as a season of anticipation more than one of new abundance. Spring has a dynamite marketing campaign—flowers, sunshine, asparagus, peas—but here in New Jersey, the asparagus doesn’t come up until May, and peas won’t be ready for harvest until June.

When I see the world around me celebrating spring this way, I feel a disconnect. In April I’m scouring my yard for the first edible weeds like an urchin, making yet another soup with root-cellared parsnips and last year’s half-desiccated garlic, narrowing my eyes at a chipper Brooklyn chef making a grain bowl using “local" bounty she found at an NYC greenmarket. I’m snipping six whole chives off the perennial plant that’s just coming up in my garden. Hungrily, obsessively assessing the tiny lettuce leaves. Checking the rhubarb every day until the stalks are fat enough to bake the first crisp.

We’re finally close to the tipping point into abundance, though. Today I’m chopping green garlic from Genesis, a task with a very low ROI (after removing the tough outer leaves and the hardneck core that comprises most of each stalk). That is, unless you count the excitement of smelling fresh garlic for the first time this year. Worth it.

However, I also spent the morning picking loads of fresh strawberries in the warm, drizzling rain. They’re wondrously juicy and sweet, precious and ephemeral, too ripe and delicate to ship very far, so you won’t find them at the grocery store. It’s difficult to convey how excited I am.

Despite my devotion to seasonal eating, I’m a hedonist at heart. Give me the feverish onslaught of harvest season. I’m ready.