Apple & Green Tomato Time
One thing about being a locavore is that I welcome the change of seasons. I never thought I’d get tired of the sweet corn, cucumbers, and other summer bounty, but I cheered when we got pumpkin and leeks instead of those summer veggies in this week’s CSA share.
The Virginia creeper is brilliant red on the wires over my garden, almost making me forgive it for being so invasive that I had to constantly weed it out this summer.
The Montauk daisies are in full glory, reminding me that it was worth stripping the yellow leaves off their lower stalks and keeping them around for this last burst of bloom in the garden.
The acorns I collected after the last Green Edge urban foraging expedition have been boiled and peeled and dumped into the freezer until I get around to doing something with them later on. Once boiled, they look something like chestnuts. I won’t kid you: they are labor-intensive. But now most of the labor is done and I’m looking forward to acorn bread next year (probably won’t get around to them before then).
I had a couple of tomato plants that didn’t succumb to this year’s awful blight. Today I took them out, first collecting the green tomatoes (didn’t compost the vines, just in case they did have a touch of that blight). I’m making green tomato chutney tonight, which I may or may not puree into a ketchup.
My cat Ella is purring in the window. She’s got a loud purr and it doesn’t require my attention to get it rumbling. Her purr is good cooking music.
Meanwhile, it’s apple time. I love the crisp apples of fall, but I also know that aside from the occasional pear,В options for fresh local fruit will be apples, apples, and more apples from now until spring. Thankfully, I’ve got plenty of other fruit canned or in the freezer. And then there’s applesauce, dried apples, apple crumble, apple butter…
Botany, Ballet, & Dinner from Scratch: A Memoir with Recipes by Leda Meredith
among other delectable wild edibles. The pulp and skin can be dried separately from the seed to create two different spices (the skin/pulp is similar to allspice, the seed peppery). To be honest, I usually take the lazy route and dry them whole.
“Urban gardening.” It’s an interesting phrase, because both of its words imply the presence of people and yet we are also talking about plants and earth. An urban environment is by definition one densely populated by humans. A garden is not a wilderness; it is a co-creative endeavor between the gardener and nature, with the gardener imposing his or her preferences on the environment.
My own one bedroom apartment comes with a sizeable (for the city) garden. It is adjacent to a day care center. When I am home during the day the soundtrack is three and four year-olds asking repetitively and relentlessly “What are you doing?” as they peer at me through the chain-link fence that is mostly covered by my hops vines. Another part of the soundtrack is the delightful cackle of Elvie, one of the center’s employee’s, who never ceases to be delighted by her charges’ antics and always waves hello to me.
Just behind me is the small shady terrace of a couple I’ve said hello to many times over the years without ever actually learning their names. They say hello to me almost daily, and I bet they don’t know my name either. The next time I see them, I plan to change that. “Urban” implies people, but it doesn’t mean “stranger.”