Wild Man Creek (Virgin River #14)(85)

She smiled and said, “Kelly can make you fall in love with it. When I was little, we survived off Nana’s garden and didn’t know for years how truly rare and valuable some of the things she grew were. But this, sliced and with red gravy and cheese? Heaven. If I cooked, I’d show you. But… Tell you what—let’s put together a nice big box for Preacher and see what he can do with it.”

“How’d you survive on it? The plants are only fresh in July and August—with some September crop—that’s only two or three months of the year.”

“She canned. She reused the same jars year after year and she bought new seals for just pennies, and through the winter we ate what she’d grown in the summer. She had recipes for relishes, salsa, sauces, vegetables and so on and Kelly is the proud owner of all those recipes now. My nana’s canned carrots were to die for. Pickled asparagus—the end of the earth. Onions and peppers—astonishing. That’s exactly why I’m sending some of this stuff to Kelly—she’ll know better than anyone if I’m on the right track here.”

“The Russian Rose isn’t in…”

“It’s green and it’s heavy, almost too heavy for the stalk, as is the Purple Calabash. Give ’em three more weeks and I bet we hit the jackpot.”

“But, Jillian,” Denny said, “I don’t think we’re making it with the asparagus….”

She laughed. “It takes a good three years to get an asparagus bed, but once you achieve it, you’ve got asparagus forever. Cover it, deprive it of sunlight, and it’s white. It’s a natural companion plant for tomatoes—it repels the tomato beetles.” She smiled at him. “Check out those brussels sprouts. By the end of September—by pumpkin time—I’m going to have a lot of them.”

“But…” She eyed him and noticed he was frowning slightly. “Is it working?” he asked.

“Yes!” she said emphatically. “Yes, Denny! It’s working! Oh, I think I missed the boat on a few plants, but most of this stuff is coming in strong. And there are lots of things I haven’t tried yet.”

“But… But can you make money?”

She laughed at him. “The most important part of the equation isn’t how much money you can make right away. We already know if it’s done right there’s money in it. Right now the important thing is, can we develop the product! That takes commitment. It takes patience and determination. When I went to work for BSS we had investment seed money, some support staff and some software engineers. We had a business plan and a product in production—accounting and money management programs. Five years later we had one of the biggest IPO’s in the industry.”

“IPO?”

“We were selling our software products at a profit and took the company public—Initial Public Offering. We’d been in business long enough to turn a consistent profit and did that with a skeleton crew and inventors. Now, for this garden, look at it this way—we need to know what we can grow, whether it’s desirable and delicious, who wants it, how much it brings the company, and then we concentrate on the most profitable crop. You know why we can afford to do that? Because it’s me and you and we’re concentrating on a good balance between generic and the rare, exotic stuff. And because we understand that this takes time and dedication.”

“Right…” he said.

“Ultimately, this farm will have to expand. But that’s something to worry about when we’ve perfected the product.”

“Expand to where?”

She tilted her head. “First we’ll clear the back meadow, then the land to the east, then we might terrace down the hill to the west. One thing at a time. Come on—let’s cut open some Sugar Baby watermelons and see where we stand.”

“Sure,” he said, going outside the fence to pluck one. “Largest or smallest?”

“Hmm. Grab one right in the middle. We’re going to collect a couple from each plant type for tasting—then we’ll put together a large box for Preacher to work on. Maybe for the Fourth of July picnic in town. Damn, I wish I was a baker like Kelly—the rhubarb is coming up and my great-grandmother’s rhubarb pie was to die for.”

Denny chuckled. “Well, I think I’m glad you’re the farmer. It never once crossed my mind to do something like this and now I keep hoping those other jobs I applied for don’t come through anytime soon. At least not while we still have harvesting to do.”

“We’ll be harvesting straight into October, young man. And in September it’s time to plan the winter garden. We’re going to see what we can produce in greenhouses. These small, portable eight-by-twelves are functional and cheap, and if they serve our purposes, I can invest in large custom shelters like you would see in an established commercial farm. But, one thing at a time.”

One of the first things Jack had added to his bar when the building was complete was a large brick barbecue. It allowed Preacher to turn steaks and hamburgers outside and host summer gatherings in the big yard behind the bar. He and Preacher had initiated the annual Fourth of July barbecue just a couple of years ago. They had added some picnic tables and had plenty of space, especially with the bar, porch and churchyard next door. They filled a couple of big plastic trash cans with ice and added canned sodas, beer and bottled water. There were several vintners in the area and some would bring wine, uncork the red and let it breathe on picnic tables; uncork the white and chill it in the ice. If they moved a few tables from inside the bar and set up a buffet outside, people filled them with pot-luck items. As for Jack and Preacher, their job was to turn burgers and dogs on the grill. All day long.