Dirt transformed

Potatoes on top; tomatoes at the farmers market below.

Gardening in Vermont is a competitive sport, and I am neither conscientious nor particularly successful. My beds are weedy, and my vegetables homely. But even so, I manage to grow greens and herbs by my kitchen door and fragrant tomatoes for sandwiches slathered with basil mayo.

Chipollini onions grow without fuss and caramelize like candy when roasted; they keep well into the next summer.

And then there are Marconi Rampicantes, aka Barre beans, seeds for which were hand-carried to Vermont from Italy 100+ year ago and passed gardener-to-gardener ever since. Equally good when they are inches small or a foot long, their ultimate virtue is that they turn unpalatably slimy when frozen, so you eat them from the vine until you are finally sick of them and then abandon the rest without guilt.

But my favorite is fava beans, double shelled and mushed with olive oil and Parmesan cheese. Spread on toasted rye bread from the wood-fired oven at Rise Up Bakery, they makes the perfect breakfast pared with bitter coffee and sweet fruit.

Sungolds on a a foggy morning