Summer                                                             Moon of the First Harvests

Spent some time picking currants, stripping them off the branch reminded me of milking a cow.  This time our crop, a slender one, yielded around 4 cups.  This is hobby level horticulture for sure.  To pick a commercially successful crop of currants would be very time consuming.  In this case we’ll end up with one currant pie.

We have had wonderful cherry tarts from our two cherry trees and have some cherries frozen.  The plum crop, though large, has not yet produced an edible plum. Not sure what the deal is with them, more to learn.  Meanwhile the bagged apples are growing inside their ziplocs and the few I couldn’t reach on each tree look great, too.  Maybe the cold, wet spring fouled up the maggots.

The bees continuing working at their in and out pace, workers flying off in all directions seeking the nectar while the the nectar flow still runs.  Our six supers make the colony look like an entomologically designed high-rise apartment complex.  Thousands of inhabitants, food and nursery service included.

Kate brought in a tomato and a cucumber, our first of either of those.  They’ll be in a salad for lunch.

Summer                                                                      Moon of First Harvests

Cherry picking.  This morning.  Blueberry picking, too.  Also pears from two trees, their entire crop.  First, the low hanging fruit, then up the ladder.  A lot of cliches come from the world of the orchard and the garden.  Let’s wait til it bears fruit.  He planted the seed on fertile ground.   In the not so very long ago, maybe one or two generations, perhaps three depending on your age these sayings were not culture; rather, they were everyday experience, or, every appropriate season occurrence.  Now, with increasing urbanization, the rapid decline of the family farm and a rush to do all things with technology the hand in the tree which picked the cherries is on the keyboard checking Facebook or more likely on the iPhone checking Snapchat.

Delivering vast numbers from the mind numbing toil of subsistence agriculture is a good thing.  No doubting that.  Even having agriculture and horticulture done by the few is not necessarily a bad thing.  We need food and flowers.  If they come to our table full of nutrients and vibrant, well then.  If however, we create a system where the food we eat has been modified not for its nutritional value but for the positive economics of its growing, harvesting and processing, well then.

Somewhere a tectonic plate of public opinion has begun to shift.  I can feel it in the newspapers, the magazines, the websites I read and visit.  That shift is toward action against global warming.  My hope is that this shift, which will ride over the continent of fossil fuel and through subduction bury it in the mantle below the crust where it belongs, will include within it a return to the tree, the wolf, the tomato and the onion.  May it be so.

Summer                                                            Moon of the First Harvests

A light rain falling as I went out this morning.  The garden continues to look strong, the tomatoes are about to enter their bearing and ripening phase, maybe a week, maybe a little more, then Kate will have the stove filled with canning and the counters with canning equipment.  Later on the raspberries, which is a bulk harvest, too, and the leeks, even later, will also be a bulk harvest.  Around the time the leeks are ready, the apples should begin to ripen.

I’m especially pleased with my new lilies from the Northstar Lily society:  the dark purple, the trumpet of white with yellow, the cream colored vase shaped, bright yellows and pinks. Their colors are vibrant.  They pulsate.  Mid-July is my favorite flower season.  Well, mid-July and early spring.  I also love the spring ephemerals.  The rest I enjoy, but these flowers make my flower growing season.

Sprayed again this morning, this one an oil based spray to strengthen the plants against insects.  It does seem to be the case, with the exception of the beets and the cabbage that insect predation is down from years past.  This has been such an odd year, especially compared to last year–hot and dry, that it’s a little hard to generalize.  It does seem to be the case that stronger plants equal better insect control, by the plant.

While the Woollies were here, I commented on the amount of money we’ve put in the outdoors.  Initially, the landscaping by Otten Brothers.  Then clearing the land for the vegetable and orchard areas. (cost here mostly stump grinding and renting the industrial strength wood-chipper.) The raised beds.  Then the ecological gardens work with the orchard and some in the vegetable garden.  Fences around the orchard and the vegetable garden and the whole property.  Irrigation zones.  The fire pit.  Mulching the orchard and the vegetable garden.  Bulbs in the fall for many years.  We’re raising expensive tomatoes.

But, this kind of accounting leaves out the most significant parts of all this work.  It keeps us outside, using our bodies.  The whole grounds are a joint effort, in work, planning, and hiring.  It also allows us to produce a good part of our vegetables at quality we effect and flowers for our tables.  Fruits, too.

Best of all it keeps us focused on the rhythms of the earth.  Winter puts the garden to sleep and relieves us of its care (for the most part).  Spring sees our fall bulb planting rewarded and our earliest vegetables planted.  Summer finds us intensely involved with weeding, thinning, managing the various crops for the year.  Fall finishes the harvest and brings senescence.