Weeks of pleasure lie ahead for food gardeners as they gleefully anticipate using the bounty from a productive growing season in an array of festive, healthful dishes.

At the same time, many of us are already considering what we have learned in our gardens this year and applying newly acquired observations to plans for the coming year's plantings.

Planning has been on the mind of a Campbell River gardener following a little experimenting his family did this year: "On a trip to Ecuador we saw fields of corn plants, many growing with climbing beans. The profusion of growth was wonderful to see and we could only imagine the harvest from the double planting.

"My wife decided to use this idea. She has always wanted to grow corn with her sunflowers. She bought corn plants, transplanted them, seeded the scarlet runners, planted sunflowers, and waited.

"The only problem was that our local nurseries had sold out of regular corn transplants quite early. They all reported a huge increase in vegetable transplant sales. The planting flourished, but the corn turned out to be a miniature type.

"The scarlet runners grew beyond the tips of the corn plants and then bent over towards the ground. The bed was a success as the flowers and foliage of the scarlet runner stems filled the spaces between the corn and hung on to the sunflower stalks.

"The beans that matured during a family vacation away are dried, stored, and used often in our favourite baked bean recipe. We are looking forward to repeating this productive, ornamental plant combination next year."

The idea to grow sunflowers in the corn planting reflects a true gardening instinct. One of my references on companion planting and space-saving methods notes that sunflowers grown among corn plants will result in higher yields in the corn.

Planting corn, beans and squash together is a native Indian tradition that makes good garden sense.

Corn is greedy for nitrogen, which the bean roots restore to the soil.

Melons, squash, and pumpkins also benefit the corn by protecting the plants from raccoons. These animals dislike moving through the thick, prickly vines.

Fabulous feasting. Planning company and holiday meals in my house involves joyous romps through favourite cookbooks.

One I return to often for festive dishes is The Thanksgiving Table by Diane Morgan.

Its photo-rich pages hold such fine make-ahead dishes as carrot pudding, rustic apple almond tart, and roasted beet salad with walnuts and goat cheese.

Acorn squash stuffed with wild rice, sautéed vegetables, cranberries and walnuts is a colourful holiday dish.

A sequel, The New Thanksgiving Table, adds treats like spiced pumpkin layer cake, silky parsnip-potato soup, and roasted carrots and parsnips with fresh herbs.

A few new books are worth taking a look at for ideas.

Slow Cooker: The Best cookbook Ever, by Diane Phillips (Raincoast; 544 pages; $29.95) has more than 400 recipes.

The vast vegetable section features fine winter dishes such as braised root vegetables, and butternut squash with thyme and cider. There are fruit sauces, butter, and crumbles galore. A maple-flavoured, spiced pumpkin butter looks appealing as a holiday treat and for the ultimate in comfort food there is a hot lemon blueberry pudding cake.

Savory Baking by Mary Cech (Raincoast; 168 pages; $29.95) features unusual recipes like crêpe rollups filled with a carrot-ginger blend, curried vegetable potpie, a grilled vegetable galette, winter squash and sage souffle, and Yukon gold brown betty.

For holiday sweet treats, Field Guide to Candy by Anita Chu (Raincoast; 320 pages; $19.95) has recipes for fruit jellies, the more flavour-concentrated French fruit pâtés made with puréed fruit, and candy apples.