|
Late April localvore spread. “Hey, lets go pick wild leeks and then make a localvore meal.” That welcome invitation from Karen came late last Saturday morning and by evening we had assembled  a magnificent feast. The last-minute dinner party was particularly notable for how easy it was to load the table with […] 
The elusive black morel. Finding morels, the first gourmet wild mushroom of the season, offers a thrill above all others. As maddeningly elusive as they are delicious, they’ve been a bit of an obsession of mine for the past decade. Despite my enthusiasm and frequent forays in search of them, each spring […] Plum blossoms after snow stom Wet, gloppy snow started falling yesterday morning and continued through most of today. Electrical power has been out for 36 hours due to trees and branches falling on power lines. Since we have a wood stove for heat, the biggest inconvenience has been lack of water. So strangely […] Salad of mixed greens from hoop house Fresh harvests of salad greens, herbs, scallions and even a few spears of asparagus have increasingly supplied our table from the unheated hoop house over the past few weeks. Spinach and lettuces planted in February and March now pump out new leaves for regular picking. Despite […] Dandelions ready to cook Nan would look out at the bright dandelions in the pasture near her home and remember fondly how her mother and grandmother would fill their aprons with the greens in spring.  She spoke longingly of the how delicious they were, simmered in a big pot for hours, seasoned […] Newest generation of foragers – Brynna with wild leeks Since late November until just last week, walks in the woods and fields have been a little dull. Animal tracking can keep the brain cells active on winter walks, but for us non-hunters and foragers, the flush of green on the forest floor stimulates […] Boiling last of the maple sap on an 80 degree day, drinking maple mojitos and listening to Bachata tunes. Red maple blossoms and golden stems of willow, wash the hillsides with a faint echo of fall colors. Hoop house ignites with green growth. Duckies snarfling for […] In the great, northeastern tomato die-off of 2009, when late blight, riding the cool, moisture-laden air of an exceptionally rainy summer, infected nearly every tomato plant in the region, two tomato varieties emerged as my heroes, enabling us to eat fresh tomatoes until Thanksgiving and even preserve some. Juliet, the blight-resistant “sweet plum cluster” tomato […] Duck egg laid between two bales of straw. A month or two ago, feathers began to accumulate in the straw and leaf bedding, deposited by our two duckies who winter in the hoop house. That signalled the start of their spring molt and the promise of eggs. But first they needed to grow […] Yesterday, the warm air inspired me to prune the grape vines and other fruiting vines and trees. While a very pleasant task, pruning these trees and vines always always makes me reflect on my inadequacies as a gardener. My failures include the 10 year old grape vines that didn’t bother to produce at […] |