Eliot Coleman

US $24.95
Gardening

Coleman four-Season Harvest

Four-Season
Harvest
Eliot Coleman and his wife
Barbara Damrosch raise vegetables
and salad greens on a year-round
organic farm in Harborside,
Maine, on land that was part of
the homestead of Helen and Scott
Nearing.

At the End of the Summer, Keep on Harvesting!

If you love the joys of eating home-garden vegetables but always thought those joys had to stop at the
end of summer, this book is for you. Eliot Coleman introduces the surprising fact that most of the United
States has more winter sunshine than the south of France. He shows how North American gardeners can
successfully use that sun to raise a wide variety of traditional winter vegetables in backyard cold frames and
plastic-covered tunnel greenhouses without supplementary heat. Coleman expands upon his own expe-
riences with new ideas learned on a winter-vegetable pilgrimage across the ocean to the acknowledged
kingdom of vegetable cuisine, the southern part of France, which lies on the th parallel, the same latitude
as his farm in Maine.
This story of sunshine, weather patterns, old limitations and expectations, and new realities is delight-
Organic
fully innovative in the best gardening tradition. Four-Season Harvest will have you feasting on fresh produce
from your garden all through the winter. vegetables
“Four-Season Harvest is a magnificent work. It’s enticing, inspiring, sensible,
and it opens a whole new world for the home grower.”
from your
—Peter Fossel, Country Journal home garden
Eliot Coleman is one of America’s leading practitioners of organic gardening and farming. He has pio-
neered a “plant-positive” approach to horticulture that surpasses chemical-dependent agriculture in every all year long
way—producing vegetables that are exceptionally nutritious, delicious, and healthy.
Revised and
Expanded Edition

Front cover photograph copyright Barbara Damrosch. Used with permission. Foreword by
Back cover photograph copyright Lynn Karlin. Used with permission.
Cover design by Ann Aspell. Barbara Damrosch

Four Season cvr.indd 1 9/10/08 10:47:35 AM

 spacing of 30-inch-wide beds. Pumpkins wouldn’t
fit either, but we don’t grow them since Buttercup
squash makes a better “pumpkin” pie. One solution
to long vines is to grow them at the edge of the
garden and encourage the vines to run through the
fence and out onto the lawn. Their forays outside
the garden confines have not been a problem. Once
the first fall frost nips the vines, harvest the fruits
and drag the vines to the compost heap. A second
solution is to grow them up a trellis or train them
to a garden fence by tying the vines every few feet
for support.The 7-foot-tall lattice fence around our
garden, which also serves as deer protection, is trans-
formed in late summer and fall into a vertical squash
field. Buttercup and Butternut squashes can hang
from the vines safely but larger, heavier squashes like
‘Zucchetta
Rampicante’
on a trellis.

4SH AppA.indd 196
Hubbards will need the extra support of a net bag or
something similar to keep them suspended.
We have always cured winter squashes, to harden
the skin before storage, by leaving them on a sunny
porch for a few weeks and providing frost protection
when necessary. According to the latest information
from the storage experts, that step is not necessary.
It has been accepted for a while that curing is not
required for the acorn and delicata types, which are
Cucurbita pepo. But for the other winter squashes,
most of which are Cucurbita maxima, we plan to keep
curing them as we always have. We are reluctant to
give up a system that has served us well. We also
think they look pretty on the porch.
All of the squash family grow well in soil
amended with compost. They germinate best in a
warm soil. For an extra-early harvest, you may wish
to start them about three weeks ahead and transplant
the seedlings after the danger of frost has passed.
We do succession planting with zucchini to keep
them under control.We sow a few zucchini seeds on
May 21, June 21, and July 10. We remove the large
plants from the previous sowing and put them on
the compost heap once the new plants start to bear.
Older, overgrown zucchini plants tend to take over
the garden paths, making it harder to move about.
They also are more likely to hide their fruits. The
younger plants are more productive and the fruits
easier to pick.
Swiss Chard  Beta vulgaris cicla
Planting Distance: 3 rows per 30-inch-wide
bed; plants 10 inches apart.
Crop Rotation: Related to beets and spinach.
Growing Tips: Occasional top dressing with
compost will maintain production.
Storage Tips: Eat fresh.
Variety Tips: Hardiest—‘Argentata’
Red-leaved—‘Ruby Red’
4/28/09 9:08 AM

Swiss chard.
Swiss chard is a beautiful, dependable, and under­
appreciated vegetable. One could attribute the lack
of fans to its undistinguished name. Switzerland
is not the culinary capital of the world, and chard
(from the French chardon, “thistle”) adds little ad-
ditional appeal. In England, a common name for
chard is perpetual spinach, a term that would likely
inhibit generations of children from ever trying it at
all. However, its French name, poirée, makes it sound
and taste delicious.
You harvest chard over a long period by picking
leaves as they reach the desired size, leaving the heart
of the plant to continue producing more. Both the
protected growing conditions in the cool months
and the selective harvesting result in a tender, high-
er-quality leaf. When chard is grown during the
outdoor season, the hot summer climate toughens
the leaves. The outdoor grower can achieve more
tender leaves by treating chard like beets—making
succession plantings and harvesting the whole plant
when the size of baby beets and greens.
When grown under the protection of a cold
frame or tunnel, chard is a reliable winter producer.
The Cast of Characters
4SH AppA.indd 197
If the seeds are sown in July and the seedlings trans-
planted in August, chard will produce dependably
from October to May.When grown in outdoor, un-
protected conditions, chard is hardy enough to keep
growing new leaves quite late into the fall. Even
in the coldest parts of New England, frozen chard
plants in the outdoor garden will come right back
during the first midwinter thaw, although they will
usually succumb to the next onslaught of cold.
The same growing tips that apply to beets also
apply to chard, as they are close relatives. When
treated as a long-season, cut-and-come-again crop,
however, chard needs some extra care. An occasional
top dressing of compost is a tonic for keeping long-
season chard tender and tasty. Chard can be trans-
planted or direct-seeded. When chard is sown as a
transplant crop you should set out seedlings in the
garden three weeks later. For whole-plant harvest,
direct-seed the chard in 10-inch rows and thin the
plants to 4 inches apart. For long-season produc-
tion, transplant the seedlings at a 10-by-10-inch
spacing. A bed of well-grown chard, especially the
red-leaved varieties, is as decorative as it is delicious.
Try chard in any dish where you might use other
greens.You won’t be disappointed.
Tomato  Lycopersicon esculentum
Planting Distance: —
Trellis—1 row per 30-inch-wide bed; plants 15
inches apart.
Ground—1 row per 30-inch-wide bed; plants 30
inches apart.
Crop Rotation: Related to potatoes, peppers, and
eggplant.
Growing Tips: Use a weekly spray of compost
tea to enhance plant vigor.
Storage Tips: Drying beats all other tomato pres-
ervation methods.

4/28/09 9:08 AM