By August, the garden that Marian Morash’s husband Russ has planted is brimming with fresh vegetables, guaranteeing tasty meals from Marian’s kitchen for a month.

Marian Morash’s August Abundance

by Marian Morash
Photography by Nicole Harnishfeger
Food Styling by Barbara Akins

June 24, and another rainy day in a season of them. Undaunted, I muck my way through our soggy island vegetable garden...My husband, Russ, is arriving on the 11:30 boat in time for lunch and all he ever wants, after arriving from America, is a meal gathered from his garden.

The prospects are not good. There are a dozen heads of loose-leaf lettuce called Marvel of Four Seasons which look pretty good and some immature leaves of Swiss chard growing under a white fabric he says keeps the bugs away. A Swiss chard frittata and a green salad will have to do.

What a difference two months can make. By the end of August the garden has exploded and I have trouble keeping up with the harvest. Russ, of course, could not be happier as he gathers one vegetable after another announcing what’s ready today and what the menu should be. By the time Labor Day arrives, the high tide of the garden season, family members show signs of green under their tans, a sure sign they’ve eaten one too many of his vegetables.

The good news is that after squandering the weekly paycheck on Bartlett’s tomatoes, ours are finally ready and now we realize we planted too many and not all the right types. We have way too many cherry and plum varieties and not enough beefsteaks for the grandchildren. They devour them like apples. Jack’s favorite is thick sliced Supersonic topped with Mozzarella cheese, strips of basil and laced with Balsamic vinegar. He’ll have that for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I work away at the crop of Sweet Million cherry and Roma plum tomatoes with one of my favorite recipes — Warm Tomato Salad with Grilled Bread and Goat Cheese — and use them whenever possible in salads, stews and fragrant fish chowders. With difficulty, I hoard some tomatoes from the family in order to make a fresh tomato sauce for the freezer. That will remind me, in the darkest days of winter, of the summer garden.
The eggplants, those that survived the wilt, call out to be picked and must be lest they turn from shiny to dull, indicating they have gone over the harvest hill. I can use them all because there are so many wonderful ways to use eggplant, especially when you are cooking for a crowd. I’ve been making Eggplant Parmesan for 45 years and we never seem to tire of it.

My all-time favorite eggplant dish is ratatouille — it’s the quintessential late-summer seasonal dish. It uses eggplant, tomatoes, summer squash, zucchini, peppers, onions, garlic and fresh basil — everything lush and ripe and ready that tastes great the first day and even better as it ages.

The Zephyr zucchinis continue to produce baskets of fruit, which cannot be given away to even the hungriest-looking visitor. We have sautéed them, baked them, stuffed them, grilled them, even pickled them, but nothing erodes the pile that materializes every day on the back porch. I julienne them for soups and slice them as “crackers” for hummus and then I give up and make more ratatouille.

The peppers are turning from green to red or gold, a sure sign they are reaching the apex of their sweetness. I have no trouble getting the grandkids to eat the stir-fried Laparie variety that Russ loves to grow, perhaps because it so resembles an Arabian slipper. I often cut red peppers into chunky pieces, toss them with olive oil and roast them along with sweet onion chunks. I like to serve them with grilled sausage just as I’ve seen them do in the North End of Boston on Italian fiesta days. Another great dish is Red Pepper and Tomato Soup that uses plenty of ripe red peppers and tomatoes — the flavor is the essence of summer.

The Fortex green pole beans we prefer to grow are ready and remind us they too must be picked or they will go over. The threat to pole beans is wind, for which there is no defense except to harvest every last one and invite a crowd over for Salad Nicoise (a personal favorite) or Bean Soup with Pistou. If that doesn’t do it, there’s always three-bean salad or pickled dilly beans.

With the concern about gaining weight always present, the cucumber is the perfect element of the summer diet. A delicious vegetable that won’t add a pound, they are scooped up by our family without guilt. It doesn’t matter how many we have in the garden — there are never enough. And better still, the preparation is a cinch. I like a cucumber salad that incorporates some of our endless stream of zucchini as well as tomatoes, parsley and mint or basil. I do add a few calories to the cucumber when I make a Cucumber Dill Sauce (with sour cream) that is a perfect accompaniment to grilled striper or swordfish.

Since early summer we’ve been grabbing Red-Gold potatoes before they are fully mature — small potatoes perfect for serving boiled with a poached fish or as “salt” potatoes. Those remaining are getting bigger and bigger and can be left in the ground until the ground freezes or lifted for storage. I dig them up as needed and often make my mom’s warm potato salad.

The onions we grow are not intended for long-term storage — the variety Ailsa Craig is a giant sweet onion with limited shelf life. It’s use ’em or lose ’em. We grill them, roast them, fry them, slice and dice them and, as evenings get cooler, with a homemade onion soup there’s no problem using them up.

No two years are ever the same in the garden and by now, after gardening and cooking from it for over 30 years, you’d think we’d have all the answers to whatever nature throws at us, but that doesn’t ever happen.
Next year we’ll probably plant too many beefsteaks and throttle back the zucchinis so much we’ll be buying them for the “rat,” but the unexpected successes and good healthy eating will make the effort all worthwhile. Now, where did I put that recipe for Fall Cauliflower Soup?

Marian Morash is a longtime seasonal resident, former chef at Straight Wharf Restaurant and author of several cookbooks including the “Victory Garden Cookbook.”