romano beans.
Vicki’s vegetable garden was a special place. It was designed with long stone planter boxes arranged in a somewhat informal oval-shaped area. The garden had benches and wrought-iron archways planted with scarlet runner beans and was bordered by a low stone wall and rose garden on one side and an inlaid stone patio and a small pond on the other. The vegetable garden was the focal point of the area, and visitors enjoyed wandering through the garden as well as viewing it from the patio tables when dining. Vicki said that most people had never seen many of the vegetables she grew.
To plant her Italian vegetable garden, said Vicki, “In late winter I send away to specialty seed companies for authentic varieties of Italian vegetable seeds. I order my American varieties from both large, well-known seed companies and small companies that carry heirloom and hard-to-find varieties, and I glean the Italian varieties from some of the large American companies, plus poring over some of the specialty seed company catalogs. I purchased a few of the Italian varieties when I was in Italy and ordered others from an Italian seed company, Fratelli Ingegnoli.”
Vicki Sebastiani’s garden in the Sonoma Valley of California. It’s mid-summer, and the tomatoes and beans are in full production and the cutting chicories and chard are filling in ready for the fall harvest.
The garden is located off the patio. The raised stone planters and archway make it an elegant setting for entertaining. The beds contain the last of the spring peas, leeks, onions, and many varieties of eggplants. Scarlet runner beans grow over the archway.
Vicki harvests cardoon, a close relative of the artichoke. Instead of eating the flower buds of this dramatic plant, the succulent stems are enjoyed.
To get a jump on the season, Vicki would start her tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, basil, chicories, and cardoon in flats early in the spring so that she could transplant them into the garden after all chance of frost has passed. As the soil started to warm up in spring, she would plant the seeds of some of the early vegetables, such as lettuce, beets, carrots, fava beans, endive, arugula, and fennel. In early summer she’d start the leaf chicories for fall harvest, and a little later the broccolis for the next spring harvest.
The plants in Vicki’s garden reflected a rich heritage of vegetables that are at the heart of Italian cuisine. To give you an idea of this vast range of vegetables, as well as the huge selection of Italian varieties unfamiliar to Americans, these are some of her favorites: romanesco broccoli, both the bronze and the chartreuse types; a purple spouting broccoli; ‘Pepperoncini’ peppers for pickling; ‘Roma’ and ‘San Marzano’ tomatoes for sauce; white and green varieties of pattypan squash; black salsify; the peppery arugula; many chicories, including ‘Palla Rossa,’ ‘Castelfranco,’ ‘Treviso,’ and a Catalonian type; three varieties of Italian chard; white and purple eggplant; Italian parsley; yellow and green romano beans; and a type of large vining zucchini that produces long, meaty fruits with almost no seeds.
For many years Vicki used her garden vegetables for everyday eating, as well as for the many visitors at the winery. The vegetables would become part of an antipasto or minestrone or, in many cases, are simply steamed or boiled lightly and served with olive oil and Parmesan cheese. As Vicki said, “When you start with superior vegetables picked at the peak of perfection, they’re very special in themselves.”
Italian Garden Encyclopedia
Famous as Italian cuisine is for its meats and cheeses, it is based first and foremost on its fresh vegetables and fruits, offering tasty options for vegetarian and vegan meals and providing the lion’s share of nutrients and flavor to dishes containing meat. Listed below are some of the most popular Italian vegetables, along with recommended varieties. I give both the Italian and Latin names in case you want to select seeds from an Italian catalog. Fratelli Ingegnoli of Milan (www.ingegnoli.it) has an extensive catalog written in English as well as Italian. Pagano is a wholesale source of Italian seeds distributed by Lake Valley Seed (www.lakevalleyseed.com) in Italian markets throughout the country. I have included a few varieties of vegetables and herbs available only from Ingegnoli and Pagano; the vast majority, however, are available from the American seed companies listed in Resources (page 109). There is much overlap between the gardens and cooking of Italy and France. I have not covered in this book some of the vegetables that are enjoyed in Italy, since they are covered in great detail in my book The Edible French Garden, including mâche, asparagus, melons, sorrel, leeks, and carrots.
Italian cuisine is unadorned. Food is prepared with a minimum of sauces, soufflés and other multi-layered techniques. Its strengths lie in using the very best ingredients, especially fresh, succulent vegetables picked in their prime, presented in a simple manner. A layout (LEFT) of just-harvested zucchinis, complete with their still-open blossoms; ripe tomatoes; fresh ‘Piccolo Verde Fino’ basil; eggplants; and baby leeks could be the spectacular foundation of just such an Italian meal.
ARTICHOKES, GLOBE
(carciofi) Cynara scolymus
Probably no vegetable is more typically Italian than the arti-choke. There are dozens of varieties, and Italians cook these thistle buds in endless ways—far beyond serving them whole and dipping them in butter. Gardeners lucky enough to have many plants can let a few buds develop into massive blue-purple thistles that are extremely showy.
HOW TO GROW: Six plants should be ample for the average family. These large 4-foot-tall (1.2 m) dramatic plants prefer cool, moist summers and mild winters but grow in summer heat if the soil is kept continually moist. Below 28ºF/-2.2ºC they need winter protection, for example, an overturned basket filled with leaves or straw and placed above the roots. In coldest-winter areas artichokes are usually not successful unless the roots are brought inside during the winter and kept moist and cool. In hot, early summers the artichoke buds open too soon and are tough. Artichokes prefer full sun in cool-summer areas and partial shade in hot-summer climates.
Purple and green artichokes
Start plants when they are bare root when possible. Plants are sold in some nurseries when they are dormant, with their roots wrapped in plastic. They are sold in nurseries in mild-winter areas of the West and in mail-order catalogs in the spring. Artichokes can be started by seeds. Sow them indoors eight weeks before your last spring frost date, about ¼ inch (6 mm) deep and ¼ inch (6 mm) apart. The soil temperature should be between 70º and 80ºF/21.1º and 26.7ºC Transplant seedlings to 4-inch (10 cm) pots. Grow at cooler temperatures (60º–70ºF/15.5º–21.1ºC during the day, 50º–60ºF/10º–15.5ºC at night). Transplant them to the garden when they’re six to eight weeks old. (They need at least 250 hours of temperatures under 50ºF/10ºC to induce budding.) Protect them from frost.
Artichokes require rich, constantly moist but well-drained soil with plenty of organic matter. They
