Firsts and lasts

This is the season of "firsts" and "lasts." Nearly every day, we have our first of something. Saturday, it was the first bitter dandelion greens and licorice-like sweet cicely in our 14-ingredient salad (along with the mustard, mache, claytonia, minutina, lettuce, spinach, arugula, radish, and beet leaves from the hoop house that we've been eating for months, and the primrose, viola flowers and chives from the garden that we began eating last week). We also shared the last jar of frozen peaches, which still tasted just like summer.

Sweet cicely: The edible leaves and seed pods of this

shade-happy perennial taste like licorice

Edible primrose flowers also love shade

The chives are coming up so fast we can almost see them grow

Tonight, dinner was a pureed potato-leek-chard-sorrel soup, a recipe I found in my "Healthy Slow Cooker" cookbook, and one worth making again. I had dug the last overwintered leeks from the garden (protected by straw) a few weeks ago. The chard was the last of leafy greens from the freezer. The vegetable stock was also the last jar. The sorrel, on the other hand, is just coming into its own in the herb bed outside the south-facing kitchen door. Each year, we have talked about using more of it; I was glad to find a simple recipe perfect for these still-chilly spring evenings that used fresh food at its peak. For dessert, we ate the last container of rhubarb-strawberry compote. I also finished the last handful of blueberries at breakfast.

Young lemony sorrel

The large chest freezer in our "mud room" is now almost empty; the last two bags of pole beans, packages of meat, and a few odds and ends all fit in the small kitchen freezer above the frig. There's something satisfying about finishing off the treats of last season, just as this year's crops are ready to pick. It signals a clear cycle that is often lost in what Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle) called the U.S.'s "promiscuous, anything anytime" food culture. There will be more blueberries, strawberries, and peaches all in their time, and not too far off either. But first, we have the sorrel, and dandelion greens and sweet cicely to savor.

Gifts

Spring green: moss growing on a log in the woods

This was a weekend of finding and sharing gifts. Richard and I wandered through the woods this morning, celebrating signs of spring growth and more evidence that the pileated woodpeckers (one breeding pair, more?) are here and apparently thriving.

Another pileated woodpecker hole

During these walks, Richard checks on the growth of the hickories, cherries and other trees that he is coming to know well. He points out to me those that have died, which he plans to turn into next winter's heating wood, and the live ones to be culled (also destined for heating wood) so that others nearby can flourish.

Fungi growing on a log

It is easy during these walks to be aware that we are part of a larger system, and that our health and well-being depends on its health and well-being. Food, heat, clothing, shelter -- all take time and labor to produce. But mostly, in our society, that time and labor is generally invisible to those of us who merely consume these products. That leaves us without the information that could help us more easily make sustainable choices about what and how much to consume. As I watch the time it takes for a tree to grow, and see the labor it takes to fell and split the wood, It is easier to remember what is required to enable us to warm the house in the coldest months. It is no longer invisible or taken for granted.

Last year's logs stocked to dry for next winter's heat.

So, too, with the growing of food. There is a different appreciation when I sit to eat a plate of braised greens that I've tended and helped to grow. There is abundance in our yard, but it is not abundance that I am drawn to overeat. That is reserved for products I merely consume, where the time, labor and "inputs" required to produce them remains invisible to me.

The food we produce ourselves seems to me always a gift, and like all gifts, it easiest to enjoy in moderate amounts, and when it is shared with others. By now, the hoop house salad greens are growing faster than we can eat them. Yesterday, I prepared a large salad to take to my synagogue yesterday for Shabbat lunch. This afternoon, I picked more of the hoop house bounty and walked up the road, dropping off bags of early spring salad greens with the neighbors. A chance to say "hello" and share these gifts.

Please, March ...

Someone was feeling playful at Cornell this week. The marquee outside the student union, which usually spells out the names of films playing in the theater inside, read instead: "Please March go out like a lamb. Please."

In contrast to last year's early spring, winter's chill is lingering this year. The hardiest of the perennial foods are just pushing through the cold soil - the nearly neon red-orange knobs of rhubarb and the first needle-like spikes of chives.

Rhubarb knobs (future leaves) pushing through the ground

The first chive spears

Still, I mind the "lion" of this month less than I would have in the past, for the greens in the hoop house are growing ferociously. The scallions, dormant and only partially grown all winter, are filling out. The claytonia, arugala and mustard are nearly at their peak. The mizuna has begun to bolt, providing some mini broccoli-like florets and a burst of cheerful yellow (edible) flowers. The rosettes of mache leaves are elongating, warning that they, too, will soon bolt to seed.

Overwintered scallions are filling out

Arugala

Claytonia

"Green Wave" mustard - very hot!

The mizuna (an Asian green) is starting to bolt

As for the needed promise of spring, the lettuce, kale and other seeds I planted in mid-February are now seedlings.

Lettuce seedlings in hoop house

All this growth means some added work, as the beds now need to be watered regularly. With night-time temperatures still well below freezing, it's too cold to set up the hose, so we carry a large watering can back and forth. About six trips in all. Our reward for our labor: large servings of braised mizuna and sides of the tastiest salad leaves.

I Still Believe in Spring

Wondering if they should return south?

The flock of robins is back in our yard this afternoon, devouring the remaining buckthorn berries and, I assume, trying to stay warm. I wonder if they are appalled as I am at yet more snow, arriving just after a series of warm, sunny days melted almost all of winter's white mounds.

Still, signs of the changing season continue to appear. Yesterday, Richard took me out to the large cottonwood at the end of our driveway. The base of the tree was surrounded by a substantial pile of relatively fresh wood chips.

Looking up ... way up, we saw the unmistakable large, deep, oval hole of a pileated woodpecker, the largest woodpecker in the northeast U.S.

A pileated woodpecker's work

We rarely see either of the dramatic, but shy, mates (or their offspring) that we assume still nest in our woods, but it is nice to find signs that they are still around.

Signs of Spring

Snow still covers most of the ground, but the stones under the shoveled paths radiated enough warmth yesterday to delight us with the sight of bare ground ...

Bare ground begins to appear

Kat was delighted too!

Kat relishing sun-warmed stones

Today, I came home from work to find an enormous flock of robins in the yard, savoring the buckthorn berries and picking seeds from the beds nearest the southern wall of the house. I only managed to photograph one before they flew away. The buckthorn is an evasive weed tree, but I'm glad to see it used for a good purpose.

Sighting: the first robin of the year!

Fresh salad is a reality again, in more than small quantities. Mache and claytonia, two mild salad greens, are the stars of winter salad, not only surviving, but thriving in frigid temperatures (in the protected climate of the hoop house, of course).

Mache, in the hoop house, of course ....

and claytonia ("miners lettuce).

No cabin fever here!

The snow continues to pile up and night time temperatures remain in the single digits, but we keep the path to the hoop house clear. By now, the growth of the daylight sensitive greens is unmistakable. Below: the rosettes of tatsoi, a mild Asian cooking green, have filled out.

Tatsoi, an Asian cooking green

The challenge this time of year is getting enough growth before the plants begin to "bolt." Once all their energy goes into producing seed, there are no more new leaves. So for lunch, tatsoi, the first to bolt, was on the menu. Baby greens, stir fried with just a bit of tamari; it tasted like spring.

Starting to bolt: the flower buds are in the center

Spring was also in my mind, if not the air, as I planted pac choi, rose radish, lettuce and red kale this morning. While they will germinate and grow more slowly in the cold, they should be fine. (Check back next month for an update.)

Richard used to tease when I insisted that spring had arrived in mid-March, just because it was sunny and above 50 degrees. Now I no longer need to wait until March to plant those first seeds. The solution for cabin fever! I'm cured!

Outside/Inside

Outside ...

Inside

Things change more slowly this time of year. While some of the plants – like arugala and claytonia have been growing enough to harvest– even if only occasionally – through late December and January, the growth of other plants has been far less noticeable.

Arugala has been growing -- slowly -- all winter

Still, change is happening, even if in small ways. It is now light when I leave work in the late afternoon, the first reassurance that the sun has begun it’s arc toward what we call “spring.” Just as I’ve noticed the lengthening of the days, so too have the plants. New leaves have appeared on the kale and winter lettuce. The rosettes of the tatsoi, an Asian stir fry green, are growing in both size and number.

Winter lettuce with new growth

The overwintered kale has new leaves as well.

While these are typical signs of spring, we do not take them for granted in January. It regularly has been in the teens during the day and low single digits at night. As Ithaca’s new school superintendent, a transplant from Virginia, said he tells his mother, “Yes, that’s Fahrenheit, not Celsius.” Sunday night brought an unusual low of -10, without the wind chill factored in.

These new lows are distressing, possibly indications of the more extreme weather patterns caused by the overall warming of the planet (higher highs, lower lows, more floods in some places, more droughts in others). Still, when I went out to the hoop house this morning to check, the plants were chilled, but still very much alive. I’m heartened by the tangible evidence that it is possible to grow more of our food close by, even in the Northeast U.S., even in the winter.

On Saturday, when we had a rare day of blue skies and bright sun, the temperature rose to the high 60s in the hoop house, even though it was a mere 14 degrees outside. I enjoyed a mini-vacation surrounded by the sight and scent of growing greens. Richard and Kat joined me briefly (although Richard didn’t stay long enough to shed his winter coat).

Richard and Kat visiting in the hoop house