Winter Joys

We've had an epic winter. Even now, several days after the vernal equinox, there's drifts of snow on the ground, ice glazing the roads and sidewalks, and single-digit temperatures to make the morning lunge for the newspaper interesting.

What to do when summer feels a million years away? Eating local can get challenging when winter stretches on, and I'll freely admit to eating produce from far away. This winter held a joyful local treat: Meyer lemon rose petal marmalade, made from Mom's backyard Meyer lemons and rose petals I tried last summer. The recipe comes from Liana Krissoff's outstanding cookbook, Canning for a New Generation.

While Krissoff's cardamom-plum jam is, in my opinion, the book's best recipe, her marmalade recipes keep body and soul together through those long dark cold days. I've made the bitter orange marmalade as well, and both are delicious with brie and pistachios on bruschetta. The sparkly tartness chases the sun back into one's kitchen with mirthful simplicity.

Hiatus Terminus

It's been four years since Tiny Urban Farm saw a fresh post. Why the abandonment? I returned to work...turns out being a working mother is just as hard as they say it is. My garden has suffered its share of neglect as well. It's been a time for me to appreciate the plants that give food with little or no attention from the gardener. First place goes to my cherry tree, which yields gallons of pie cherries even when I am most derelict in its care. This tree was a wedding gift from my mother almost seven years ago. In the middle of winter, I pull out a freezer bag with about 5 cups of cherries in it, and make cheery almond crisp with this recipe, adapted from Chef Rachel Lang-Balde. This recipe is good with just about any fruit and nut combination - sometimes I use 3 cups of cherries with a quart of drained home-canned peaches for the fruit - yum.

Cherry Almond Crisp

Ingredients
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into quarters lengthwise and then chopped into cubes
3/4 cups sliced almonds
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 Tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp sea salt
Defrosted cherries, about 5 cups back when they were fresh

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°F.
To make the topping, place first 6 ingredients in a large bowl and stir lightly with a spoon. Use fingertips to work butter into dry ingredients until mixture comes together in moist clumps. Stir in almonds.
Mix next four ingredients together in a 9"x11" baking dish. Add the cherries and toss to coat. Spread evenly in pan.
Sprinkle topping over fruit.
Bake until topping is crisp and golden, about 45 minutes.
Eat warm and watch out for pits.

Early Summer Bounty

Quick as a cricket, summer is here and things are looking up. We've had rain almost every day in June. The garden is an exuberant mess. Amish snap peas are delicious; Tom Thumb peas a bit dry and not very sweet. Herbs are walloppingly large; borage is trying to take over the world.

Springtime Blues

Alas, spring sickness has descended and the primary victims are my seedlings. Due to watering neglect, basil, dahlia, kale, and most of the peppers have kicked the bucket. Ray of hope transcends from daffodils and cherry blossoms that perform with no contributions of mine. The lovage is already quite tall. A rose has passed on, leaving space to move the oregano away from the currants. Constant remodeling.

Having a garden places one on the endless wheel of greenery. Weeding, watering, transplanting - it's not over till the frost hits. Moping around the house, I neglect it all. It's not really work until I'm too tired to do it.

Bunnies of the World, Unite

My neighborhood is basically a warren. There is a part of our backyard nicknamed "Rabbit Superhighway," identifiable by the trail of turds that passes beneath the raspberries, which for some reason are a favorite winter snack of the local leporids. Some friends are exterminators, others protectors. I read Watership Down at too tender an age to lift a finger against a bunny, but I must admit that I'm not pleased when they help themselves to spring's sweet snacks: tulip shoots, baby lettuce, and new compass plant.

Image from freewildlifepictures.com

Countdown

1 week until my cool season veggies sprout on the warm patio.

3 weeks until the farmers' market opens.

5 weeks until my tomato and pepper seedlings go in the ground.

0 weeks until I get cool stuff from my CSA.

That's right, Easy Bean Farm is sending out awesomeness right now. Granted, the awesomeness is not edible, but I love the emails and pics Farmer Mark emails every week. I get to see him working on his tractor and cheering on the leek seedlings. Farmer Mark is cool.

It's a good thing, because we are wrapping up a major warm snap that signaled my springtime impatience to burst forth like dandelions in the patio cracks. Like bunnies in my lettuce container. Like the inevitable succession of baby animals that lodge themselves in our egress window well and await rescue. We've had a baby rabbit, a baby albino squirrel, and a baby bird. It's one of our signs of spring, like my husband scraping last year's caked-on meat from the grill, or feelings of embarrassment at the neighbors' still-displayed reindeer lawn ornaments.

Starting Seeds

Nothing stops the flutter and surge in my heart when seeds I've planted sprout. There's something so irrepressible about germination, and when I have planted the seeds myself, the process somehow means so much more.

Not that I am a guru of the greenhouse. On the contrary, my seed starting methods are a mish-mash of shortcuts and avoidances. I'm not fond of thinning seedlings, and I don't like to transplant such delicate creatures. So I pop two or three seeds in each of the compartments of the container I will use until the plants go in the ground. If extras sprout, I leave them to it more often than not. The flats bask under two flood lamps in the room over our garage.

This year's first sprouter was kale, quickly followed by onion, basil, and dahlia. Gorgeous!