Market gardeners and backyard gardeners alike may find inspiration and guidance in The Chinese Kitchen Garden. The book is rich in practical information framed by the story of how gardens can connect generations.
After moving from China to the U.S., the author’s parents started a family and a garden. Kiang-Spray, however, didn’t grow food until her own daughters asked to have a garden. She then embarked on a journey. She learned how to grow, cook and preserve Oriental vegetables, and discovered more about her family’s heritage in the process.
The Chinese Kitchen Garden is divided into four sections. Each focuses on a season and describes timely activities ranging from building cold frames to pest control to seed saving. Crop profiles follow. The profiles make up the bulk and the most useful parts of the book — with detailed instructions on how to grow, harvest and cook about forty plants. Recipes are included for certain crops, including bamboo shoots, edamame, lotus root, bottle gourds, fuzzy melons and winter melons. Market growers and CSA providers can share the cooking advice with their customers.
As a result of reading the book, I am now growing several new crops and changing my gardening practices. I am also re-visiting crops I had tried before and rejected. I have learned that some of the reasons why I didn’t like certain crops (excessive bitterness, toughness, tendency to bolt early) were my fault—I just didn’t know how to grow them well or when to harvest.
For example, I thought bok choy, like other brassicas, bolted due to heat and/or moisture stress. So I was frustrated when in cool summers, my bok choy bolted even though it was well watered. Kiang-Spray explains that bok choy is triggered to flower when days are long. The way to avoid this is by planting in partial shade during the summer or growing during the short days of the spring and fall.
At times, the writing is touching and beautiful. Kiang-Spray reminds readers of the emotional potency of food. She recalls a dinner party when, after her father’s dumplings were served, a guest burst into tears overwhelmed with memories of the country he had left years before. At other times, the scenes are all too familiar to gardeners
the feeling of being consumed by the chore of preserving fall produce and unable to escape the kitchen. I like Kiang-Spray’s description of a common phenomenon she calls “winter amnesia” the way each winter we forget all the pests, the drought, the work and the struggles we had in the previous seasons and plan our next garden with optimism and hope.
Perhaps it’s winter amnesia on my part, but after reading The Chinese Kitchen Garden, I anticipate a great garden filled with a diverse selection of exotic vegetables this year.
- Janet Wallace