Goldfinches to the rescue

A hot, dry walk yesterday in search of hummingbirds - we did see one - was rescued at the last minute by a small flock of goldfinches feeding on woodland sunflowers (Helianthus divaricatus) in a meadow atop Lookout Hill, in nearby Prospect Park.

The day before, a different and rather disappointing outing (so dry, so many crisp and dead plants) was also revived by goldfinches doing exactly the same on Governor's Island, their beaks busy with the seeds of spent echinacea flowers.

I hereby co-name the recent full moon (the Sturgeon Moon for Native American fishing tribes) as the Goldfinch Moon.

Green

It is all very green, where lately it had been brown. Lately is months ago. Lately was March and April, the tentative days of spring. But time compresses. Now, the terrace, the parks, the streets of the city, are very green. 

Raindrops sparkle on jewelweed's leaves. The jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) blooms in late summer, and in fall. It is there for the ruby-throated hummingbirds. It is there for us, to lure the hummingbirds, for us to see.

The jewelweed is self-sown, from seeds detonated last year by spring-loaded capsules. Just two plants share a pot - come their height, they will be extremely thirsty, and the pot might be replenished twice a day. Jewelweed likes damp places. At night, it folds its leaves. 

On the terrace its companion, in another pot, is Thalictrum pubescens, tall meadow rue, a perennial whose shallow roots also relish water. Its parent grows in the Catskills, its feet in deep moss watered by a stream that trickles perennially down a clean mountain.

The raccoons are afoot again in the evenings, on the roof above the Boston ivy.

We wonder where they come from, and where they go.

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The ramps have risen!

The ramps on the tiny terrace have broken their long hibernation. They made flowers last year, in summer, long after their leaves had disappeared in the heat. Several seeds formed and matured and I dug them back in. I wonder if they will germinate?

It takes around, give-or-take, roughly, approximately, more or less, seven years for a ramp grown from seed to be able to make its own flowers, and seeds. 

Don't encourage vendors to sell mountains of ramps. Do ask them to sell ramp leaves only. They can be packaged just like delicate leaves like chicories and salad. And do soak some of the rooted plants overnight before planting them in pots or in the soil where they will get spring sunlight and summer shade. They are an Eastern US native, and appreciate cold winters. Compost, leaf litter, and slightly acidic soil help, too. But mine just grow in potting soil, with some of their woodland neighbors. 

Many of my overwintered bulbs did not make it and turned to mush: lilies, alliums (the ornamental kind).  It's not the cold that bothers them, but a repeat freeze-thaw cycle, and wet feet. Ramps like wet feet, for a bit. And here they are.

Read all about how to grow ramps in this story. And what ramp habitat looks like in spot we visist every spring, in the Catskills.

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Bee balm

It's bee balm time again. I have grown Monarda fistulosa in pots but find that it is happier, in-ground. With a breeze and some grasses for company. In a tony patch of soil in front of our building a hot pink-flowered cultivar is very happy alongside agastache and fennel. (And yes, that entire four-ish square feet is vibrating with pollinators.

The stems, leaves, flowers, and seed heads can be used as a powerfully fragrant herb. Think oregano. But different. And cold-hardy.

Time for that summer caprese salad again. Recipe over on Gardenista.

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Apocalypse forage

Some likened our apocalyptic skies this week, and the pervasive smell of smoke, to 9/11. But the smell of the Canadian wildfires was misleadingly wholesome and pleasant, like woodsmoke. Even through my N95 mask, from our Covid stash.

9/11 was a terrible smell. Like burned wires and bone. 

I went foraging, masked. 

The air grew progressively worse; it hadn't been too bad when I set out. So the world was sepia. A few days before 9/11 I dreamed that my mother and I were hiding in a bombed-out building in lower Manhattan. This was the light in the dream. In the dream three old WWII-type bombers flew low over us.

9/11 was a beautiful day, crystal clear and blue.

I collected good things in the smoke and have many projects, now, most to fuel future forage picnics. The cones will be blanched, then pickled or/and turned into jam.  The bayberry will be turned into a vivid green oil, to be frozen and scooped when needed. Also poached with summer fruits. The green peaches will be salted and fermented. their leaves will infuse white wine. The sweet clover will be dried for future biscuits, breads, and cakes.

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 Walks and Picnics

How to grow ramps - and why

What is that green shoot? It has four friends, too. They are all - well, cough, all five - ramps, just up in a pot on our terrace after a curious winter (deep freezes in December, thaws, record-high February temperatures, more freezes, and a lot of rain).

When you have seen a mountainside green with ramps, five plants in a pot might not seem like much. But when you have seen a forest where ramps used to grow, and that is now bereft of their green leaves in early spring... those five cultivated ramps are a big deal.

Ramps are a wild onion - Allium tricoccum and A. tricoccum var burdickii, and they are a beloved wild, native, edible plant; so loved that they are being harvested into oblivion in some US states, and in Canada. 

But they are not hard to cultivate. Love ramps? Have some land or a pot or a garden?

Find how to grow them in my Ramp 101 story for Gardenista. At least, that was the original title - it has been modified. I do harvest wild ramps in a place where they are abundant - leaves only. 

And that is my mantra: #rampleavesonly

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New Forage Classes - March, April and May

 

Beach plum gin

August in Brooklyn feels like January in Keetmanshoop, right now. Oven-hot. But New York also slings a bucket of soapy mugginess at you to make sure you will really, really look forward to September. And I do. Look forward to September.

There are compensations. For me, they are fruit. Beach plums are beginning to ripen. Elderberries (the ones that have not shriveled on the parched shrubs) are turning purple. And Aronia is ready, too.

I opened a 2020 bottle of beach plum gin the other evening. A maceration made in that first summer of pandemic. It is very good, but improved by a bitter strip of ruby grapefruit peel, with lots of dry tonic (Fever Tree Lite) and ice to make the glass bead. Perfect for this weather. This is the gin I refer to as Pits-and-Pulp, using the leftovers from a beach plum purée. I create another gin, too, that is redder and richer...

I explain that, with a recipe, in the recent story about beach plums I wrote for Gardenista, which you will find in that link. They are a wonderful East Coast fruit, and a very resilient shrub. I hope more people will grow them. 

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Find me @66squarefeet on Instagram

Aronia - good for what ails ye

As late summer arrives in waves of humidity, with a side of cicadas, Aronia begins to ripen. The dried fruits above were added to a batch of roasted beets, for a savory spread (I call it a pâté) that I make for forage picnics.

I also preserve the antioxidant-laden fruit in a chutney that is flavored with juniper and spicebush, and which is very good with soft cheese.

The chutney recipe, and much more about superfood Aronia, is over at Gardenista.

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Edible Plant Walk, Queens Country Farm Museum

10 August 6pm

Maine in May

Maine in May is a beautiful escape, for the city-dweller who loves plants. You'll find my story on Gardenista. With a bonus of lilac honey.

Can you identify the flowers above?

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My next NYBG Forage Class is 12 May

Into the Wild(s...: of Brooklyn)

In Green-Wood Cemetery there was a hornet's nest in a Turkish hazelnut tree. It is exquisite. If it was Art, people would line up and wait.

Under a young oak tree nearby there was a young raccoon, foraging for acorns. 

In Prospect Park a downy woodpecker stood silent for a minute. Was she listening or resting? Or dreaming woodpeckerish dreams?

In a patch of jewelweed where storm-fallen trees have created a slash of sunlight, hummingbirds feasted and fought among the flowers. Then they rested. Tiny as moths, fierce as fundamentalists.

They perched on the roots of tilted trees, preening and scratching, itching and plotting.

And at home, on the small terrace, a monarch found the milkweed, at last.

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Find me on Instagram @66squarefeet

Cottage in the mist

Within a week of leaving this cottage in Maine last September I had booked another week, for this spring. We had no idea what the travel situation would be, whether we'd be vaccinated, or what the world would look like. But we knew we wanted to come back.

We have walked in wet woods and found glorious wildflowers. I have never seen lady's slipper orchids in their natural habitat, before. 

And bluebead lilies covering the mossy forest floor.

I had been spotting carpets of bunchberries from the car as we drove north, and on our first hike they kept us company all the way. The tiniest of dogwoods.

The cottage has a natural hedge separating it from the dramatically rising and falling tide. In it grow bayberry, blueberry and native black cherry. The bayberry is at that deliciously tender stage where it quickly perfumes a drink. 

So that is what it did. 

 

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Forage, Harvest, Feast

The harbingers of spring

On a grey Easter Sunday we drove north to the Catskills. Since our last visit, in early March, trees had toppled into the rushing river, changing its profile.

Within minutes the sun came out and the temperature on this warm side of the valley rose from four-layers-plus-woollen-hat-and-gloves to T-shirt. It was wonderful.

And then we found the ramps (Allium tricoccum). I have collected these native wild leeks here for years but this time we walked further than usual. The slopes were greening as far as we could see.

I collected enough leaves to make a large bunch wide enough to fill my backpack. But often I just stood, and stared, smiling at this robust population of the delicious spring edible, so vulnerable to commercial exploitation.  In some places it is wildly abundant. In others it has been razed. 

They are not that hard to cultivate (spring sun, summer shade, humus-rich soil, plenty of moisture). 

The river far below ran fast, while up on the damp slope the ramps were growing almost audibly. In amongst them ephemeral wildflowers like wake-robin and toothwort were beginning to emerge. There were some early insects. And birds catching them. The fragile edge of spring.

Back home, a pot of lamb shoulder had been cooking in a very low oven, all day. Lamb with a spoon, my mom used to call it (I called it spam with a loon). It was fall-apart tender when we walked back into the apartment, eight hours after leaving.

And I added some ramp leaves to melt for a final half hour's fragrance. Their wild onion scent made the Frenchman hum happily.

The next ramp meal was a grilled cheese sandwich, on sourdough I baked late last week. Grated cheddar, mustard, ramp leaves. Cooked in sizzling butter.

A feast. And necessary fuel for all the ramp preservation to follow.  Ramp leaf oil, ramp leaf salt.

Much more ramp stuff in that chapter of Forage, Harvest, Feast. 

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Beautiful Fall Forage Classes at the NYBG

October is around the corner, and that means autumn, for real. 

In an unreal year.

I visited the New York Botanical Garden recently because I will be teaching there again in a few weeks: Two outdoor classes, on October 15th and October 29th. [Update: these classes are fully booked but there is one in WINTER! January 21st] The classes are really walks, and we will be visiting the Native Garden (above) and the Thain Family Forest. And probably meandering  a bit more if the mood strikes us. 

Come and learn to identify edible plants in their fall clothes, and understand how they fit into the bigger ecological picture. We will breathe in the good, fresh air of the mainland (hey, I live on an island; the Bronx is exciting to a Brooklynite!). 

Masks are mandatory - so our fresh air will be filtered - and attendance is limited for social distancing reasons. So book, soon.

I spotted a sweet hummer in the jewelweed patch. Planting annual Impatiens capensisis is a sure-fire way to attract and support the vulnerable little birds on their way south in early fall. Jewelweed self seeds very readily (and its seeds are edible!) so once you have it, it will be there forever. It likes dappled shade and a lot of moisture. Low-lying areas that don't drain well are perfect. But I have grown it successfully in pots and planters, too.

Still boggy, here is pickerel weed. Its young leaves, buds, flowers, and seeds are good to eat.

No, don't eat the pitcher plants. But it's fun to see carnivorous plants flourishing.

These are ostrich ferns. In spring their fiddleheads are delicious. Plant one and in a couple of years you will have a dozen. Perfect for a deep shade spot.

Golden rods (Solidago species) are often blamed for seasonal allergies, but they are innocent: their pollen is too fat to affect our sinuses. In fact, showy flowers whose job it is to attract pollinators are usually never allergen-culprits. Rather, it is the inconspicuous flower of wind-pollinated plants (like ragweed, and I suspect, mugwort) that is an irritant, because it is so fine and light, designed to be dispersed by the puff of a breeze. 

And yes, some golden rods are delicious...

The extreme climate of the Northeast is also home to a native prickly pear, Opuntia humifusa. Muggy summers and freezing winters do not rattle it.

 

Fragrant Pycnanthemum species love full sun and pollinators love them. Their leaves, flowers and seeds make refreshing drinks.

Imposter! Not native. But very closely related to our indigenous prickly ash (which can be used in the same way). This is Chinese pepper, or Sichuan, Zanthoxylum simulans: citric, cooling, numbing, unique.

Yes, the elusive pawpaw (Asimina triloba) lives at the NYBG. The fruit ripens under its green umbrella-ed leaves in mid to late September. This still-underplanted tree deserves a spot in every garden. This year I enjoyed wonderful pawpaws picked from a tree in Brooklyn's Park Slope.

And the delicious - or terribly stinky, like-sweaty-socks-that-a-cat-peed-on? - cranberry viburnum. The smell is in the details. How to tell the difference between the native and European species? We will learn! 

Use the links below to book.

October 15th

October 29th

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Wild Foods Cookbook