A good spring radish should feel almost impossible for something so quick: crisp, juicy, sharp enough to wake up a salad, and gone from seed to harvest before slower vegetables have settled into their stride. Then, some years, the first bite is a disappointment. The root looks fine from the outside, but inside it is dry, spongy, woody, or hollow.…
By late October, the pumpkin patch begins to feel less like a vine and more like a collection of objects the garden is almost ready to release. The leaves have thinned. The vines are tired and scratched with mildew. The fruit, which spent summer swelling quietly under broad leaves, now sits in the open with a dull orange weight that…
By the end of September, a tomatillo plant can look as if it has been quietly making decorations while the tomatoes were taking all the attention. The plant sprawls through its cage, lifts yellow flowers in the leaf forks, and hangs little green lanterns from the stems. Some are tight and empty-feeling. Some are papery and swollen. Some have split…
