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in a row of other tomatoes, there you’ll stay for life, watching the neighbors get a nasty case of hornworms, knowing in your heart you’re going to get them too. If nobody is spritzing chemicals on the predators, all a plant can do is to toughen up by manufacturing its own disease/pest-fighting compounds. That’s why organic produce shows significantly higher levels of antioxidants than conventional—these nutritious compounds evolved in the plant not for our health, but for the plant’s. Several studies, including research done by Allison Byrum of the American Chemical Society, have shown fruits and vegetables grown without pesticides and herbicides to contain 50 to 60 percent more antioxidants than their sprayed counterparts. The same antioxidants that fight diseases and pests in the plant leaf work similar magic in the human body, protecting us not so much against hornworms as against various diseases, cell aging, and tumor growth. Spending extra money on organic produce buys these extra nutrients, with added environmental benefits for the well-being of future generations (like mine!).

Some of the best-tasting things in life are organic. This dessert (adapted from a Jamie Oliver creation, via our friend Linda) is a great way to use the high-summer abundance of blackberries, which in our part of the country are rain-washed and picked straight from wild fields. The melon salsa will bring one of summer’s most luscious orange fruits from the breakfast table to a white tablecloth with candles. It’s elegant and delicious over grilled salmon or chicken.

BASIL-BLACKBERRY CRUMBLE

2–3 apples, chopped

2 pints blackberries

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1 large handful of basil leaves, chopped

¼ cup honey—or more, depending on tartness of your berries

Preheat oven to 400°. Combine the above in an ovenproof casserole dish, mix, and set aside.

5 tablespoons flour

3 heaping tablespoons brown sugar

1 stick cold butter

Cut butter into flour and sugar, then rub with your fingers to make a chunky, crumbly mixture (not uniform). Sprinkle it over the top of the fruit, bake 30 minutes until golden and bubbly.

MELON SALSA

(Makes six generous servings.)

1 medium cantaloupe

1 red bell pepper 1 small jalapeño pepper

½ medium red onion

¼ cup fresh mint leaves

1–2 tablespoons honey

2 teaspoons white vinegar

Dice melons and peppers into ¼-inch cubes. Finely mince onion and mint. Toss with honey and vinegar, allow to sit at least one hour before serving over grilled chicken breast or fish filet.

Download these and all other Animal, Vegetable, Miracle recipes at www.AnimalVegetableMiracle.com

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12 • ZUCCHINI LARCENY

July

The president succumbed to weeds. So did the lost dogs, the want ads, and our county’s Miss America hopeful. By the time we returned from vacation at the end of June, our fastidious layers of newspaper mulch were melting into the topsoil. The formerly clean rows between our crops were now smudged everywhere with a hoary green five o’clock shadow. Weeds crowded the necks of the young eggplants and leaned onto the rows of beans. Weeds are job security for the gardener.

Pigweeds, pokeweeds, quackgrass, crabgrass, purslane: we waged war, hoeing and yanking them up until weeds began to twine through our dreams. We steamed and ate some of the purslane. It’s not bad. And, we reasoned (with logic typical of those who strategize wars), identifying it as an edible noncombatant helped make it look like we might be winning. Weed is, after all, an arbitrary designation—a plant growing where you don’t want it. But tasty or not, most of the purslane still had to come out. The agricultural concern with weeds is not aesthetic but functional. Weedy species specialize in disturbed (i.e. newly tilled) soil, and grow so fast they kill the crops if allowed to stay, first through root competition and then by shading.

Conventional farming uses herbicidal chemicals for weed control, but since organic growers don’t, it is weeds—even more than insects—that often present the most costly and troublesome challenge. In large