Purple Harvest

This morning i harvested only purple things from the garden--purple asparagus and purple pea pods. I cut a several sprigs of lavender. Even though black raspberries call themselves "black," when i crush them between my fingers or my teeth, the result is purple fingers or a purple tongue. I put all my gleanings into my purple (and blue) harvest basket. And, oh yes, i was wearing purple pants and a purple shirt.

The purple asparagus is called Purple Passion. If you're reading this blog, you are as passionate about gardening as i am.

The garden is a place where we can be our authentic selves. We don't have to act in one of our daily roles. We can just "be." And sometimes we  might slip into calm or tranquility. Ahh. Peace at last.

Today: a purple peace.

Not Too Much Harvest This Year

by Guest Blogger, Laura Evans

Not too much harvest to worry about this year—alas. Something—maybe moles? Or voles?—found even onions tasty, munching on them from underneath. The onion would look nice and plump with its papery gold-brown top showing above ground, waiting for its stalks to flop over, indicating readiness for pulling. Then when you'd pull it, it would seem to fly out of the ground with no effort on your part, and you realized it was a trick: no roots and no onion left at all. As for other things, some never germinated or were devoured in infancy. Some seedlings were eaten early by rabbits, which we'd never had before in our 35 years of hillside gardening.

Birds, as always, loved the red “razzles,” but many got moldy before quite ripening. Chipmunks enjoyed the cherry tomatoes. I watched a squirrel delighting in our plump blackberries. The deer greatly appreciated our kale and the tops of tomato plants. Blight and tomato hornworms also joined in the tomato decimation. Weeks of rain were part of the picture too. So, we got little or no cukes, cabbage, broccoli, or squash (summer or winter).

Then there are (were) the apples. Doug comes in the door with deep red ones from the biggest tree—all five held easily in his cupped hands. I look up from chopping store-bought veggies as he announces, “Well, here's the Jonathan crop for this year.” He sets the gnarled knobby little things on the counter. Horrified at first, I grew fond of them over a few days, finding them humorous and cute—like the shrunken little old heads of apple dolls—no drying needed.

Last year, the apples did okay, and a year or two before that, even though we don't spray them, the branches were groaning under the weight of big flawless fruit. Pears too, that year; same thing. And peaches.

This year, the small seckel pears were plentiful and coming along until, after a few days away, we came back to find them just not there. Along with the hordes of squirrels, we think a gray fox participated in the feast. We saw it soon after, apparently looking through the grass below the tree for any it might have missed. (Unlike their red fox cousins, they can climb trees.) 

I love seckel pears best of all, but the glimpses of that gray fox almost made up for the losses.

Laura Evans is memoir writer and an early childhood educator who lives with her gardening husband in Vermont.

A New Food Dryer

I went to my local hardware store to buy a food dryer. Well, i already have a food dryer--a wooden box the size of an apartment refrigerator that my brother-in-law built for me 30 years ago and powered by four 100-watt lightbulbs.

I wanted one of those round models that sits on the countertop. In a small town, the hardward store is small, but usually has everything i need. As i was checking out, i sighed, "I'm looking for a food dryer, but i couldn't find one."

The clerk looked up and across the store to the kitchenware department. "There's one on the top shelf," he said. "Do you want some help in getting it down?"

Oh, the long view is so important. I had perused the kitchen equipment shelves twice and not seen the food dryer. Yet, from his vantage point, 60 feet away, the clerk could see it.
When i'm tangled up with the wants and don't-wants of my daily life, i can't see the long view. Then, a week, a month, a year later, Oh.... Yes, that happened perfectly, as it turned out. Even though i wanted something else at the time.

Today, i'm drying raspberries, and i'm pretty sure those will taste great a few months from now.

Growing My Own Raspberries

My neighbor gave me raspberry plants two years ago, and about half of them died. Last year, they filled my 3' x 6' patch nicely. This year i have a bounty of red raspberries on the second-year canes and little raspberry shoots are showing up in nearby beds. My raspberry patch could quadruple in size by the end of the summer.

What fun to go out to the garden and harvest a pint of raspberries every evening. In previous years, i've stopped at the farm stand and bought a pint of raspberries every day. Now they're free.

Growing my own food--and fruits!--not only saves me money, it brings me such joy. An unlimited supply of fresh red raspberries. Mmm-mmm.

Kiwis in the North

My favorite fruits are berries. When berry season begins, i buy a pint of berries a day at our local farmstand, and ssshhh, don't tell anyone: Sometimes i eat an entire pint of red raspberries before i arrive home, 2 miles away.

Strawberries, red raspberries, black raspberries, cherries, blueberries. The season is all over by early September. For solace, i buy ground cherries, also known as Cape gooseberries. These little yellow-orange "berries" hide inside a tomatillo-type paper husk. They are slightly tart and also sweet.

Then, the last week of September, it's kiwi season in the north country! Kiwis in zone 4? Yep. These grape-sized "berries" have a smooth skin and taste exactly like their big-cousin kiwis. If you daintily slice one open, you'll find green fruit and teensy black seeds. Kiwis only last until frost, so usually the season is just a week or 10 days long. This year, kiwi season has lasted an entire month :)

In our meditation practice, we may yearn for the "big fruit" of en-lighten-ment. In our day after day practice, little insights--the little fruits of our practice--gradually add up. Eventually the light will shine through.

Meanwhile, let's enjoy the fruit(s) that we can taste right now.

Winter Raspberries

One of the local farm stands, Dutton Berry Farms, STILL has fresh raspberries for sale. The raspberries are dark red and practically shivering with cold. The supply is limited--maybe a dozen pints per day. But what a tasty gift for this time of year. Fresh raspberries, sprinkled on cereal in the morning or chocolate cake in the evening.

Our meditation practice, which begins to bear fruit in the summer of our lives, will continue producing fruit into the winter of our lives--if we tend it daily.

What joy to eat fresh, local raspberries! What joy can also be found in the calmed, meditative mind.