I’m feeling a bit grabby for succulent produce to eat and freeze before winter.
We have a chest freezer now and it’ll enable us to eat tri-colored string beans, blackberries, corn, tomato sauce; choosing from collected bags of summer, full of light and heat in strong contrast to the short, cold white-sky days of March.
This morning I stopped by a local farm and met the owners, Bob and Vigo Johnson who were very happy to make my butter-sugar corn a baker’s dozen, feed me a brand new Cortland apple from Carlson Orchards and throw in a bonus box of McIntoshes. Everything’s early this year. Bob is very proud of his vine ripened tomatoes.
He has thirty plants and hand-waters every day. That’s the secret he says, blinking gleaming, shockingly blue eyes from under a straw hat. Takes me one hour each session and I do it twice a day he tells me proudly. Gotta water at the roots. I tell him my little crop had early blight and pretty much wiped me out. I’m grateful for his hard work.
Cheery fruit makes easy still lives. Attention to gathering food brings a sort of primal awareness to the cycle of hunger and satiation.
Now out to my little plot to plant another round of arugula and lettuce for fall harvest.
todirtwithlove 