August's end

It seems sudden, the arrival of the night. But the evenings are evenings, again. This is 7.39pm on Monday. Supper not on the table, yet.  Raccoons not yet on the rooves. 

The chimney swifts are aloft earlier.  The cricket chorus adds new members, nightly. The trees vibrate with the zeal of cicadas. The tropical plants are all at their happiest, not realizing that in two months they may be indoors, again. 

In the dark, I can no longer see the dozens of tiny buds on the (hardy) tea plants. I don't know if they will bloom in autumn or early spring (they are Camellias, after all). And I have harvested my first, green tea, from new shoots.

I think I have seen night hawks, from the terrace. I hope they come back. At night, before I go to sleep, I learn the Latin and Greek names of birds. It's hard. These night hawks might be Chordeiles minor. I have to make up ways to remember. So I say, these night hawks strike a minor chord. Chord...eiles...minor. But it works. Some birds are easy. Blue jay is Cyanocitta cristata. The etymology is beautiful.

And here comes Labor Day. 

There is a walk, then, to say goodbye to summer, at Dead Horse Bay. If you're coming, booking is via the link below.

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Return to Dead Horse Bay

True cardamom, false cardamom, and the tropical garden

And sometimes the terrace is a mess. Because it all happens here, on the stone table. Potting, transplanting, and after it is all swept and wiped away, supper. 

I divided the galangal early in the year, planting the smaller version of itself in a temporary black nursery growpot. It has been thriving, so I decided to dignify it with a terra cotta home and there it is, bottom right on the table.

In the back is true cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum), from Companion Plants, and now residing in a larger pot, too. "True" cardamom has a long backstory: a year-and-a-half ago I learned, thanks to a sniping but enlightening comment from an obsessed plant geek (who has never re-surfaced), and then a lot of rabbithole research, that most, if not all, the so-called cardamom plants being grown for sale in this country are not. Cardamom, that is. Instead, they are false cardamom (Alpinia nutans). And most growers themselves are unaware. So for years I grew the flourishing false, thinking it was the true. (How do you know which you have? In the words of Randy, the grower ar Randy's Tropical Plants, with whom I corresponded about telling true cardamom apart from false: "If the foliage is fragrant, then it is not Elettaria cardamomum.  It is almost certainly Alpinia nutans." So crush and sniff, and sorry. But the false cardamom is still a great, low-maintenance house plant!). 

In conversation with Peter Borchard, of Companion Plants (which is one of my favorite growers of esoterica, based in southeast Ohio) he promised me the real deal, when he learned that he, too, had unwittingly been growing the false. So as soon as their single, verified parent plant had babies - they are easy to propagate, like all rhizomatous members of the Zingiberaceae family - they kindly sent me one. (The first specimen was mistakenly shipped to our previous address, so perhaps our Horrible Neighbor benefited. Eeeh. Bad memories. The bike slasher and shouter. He was convinced we were stealing his parcels. It was fascinating, but not fun, like a car crash. The second shipment arrived here, safely.) 

So will I get cardamom pods? Maybe not. Randy said it is unusual for them to bloom unless conditions are perfect, and also said that they must be hand pollinated (like vanilla). 

In the blue pot (bought in desperation, since stores have run out of terra cotta, thanks to pandemic garden-mania) is the black pepper vine (Piper nigrum, and yes, the producer of green and black peppercorns; well, not yet. [Update, 2022: It is NOT black pepper. It is a species of betel! Same grower]). It came from Companion Plants, too. It settled in so well that it needed an upgrade in terms of size, and is now feeling better in blue. Even if I have my doubts about the color. It will come inside in winter, of course, to join the tropical flock of citrus, and various members of the ginger family. I have no idea how it will take to dry indoor conditions in winter, but I have learned that the more plants I have indoors, the higher the humidity levels. When the air is freezing out, there is film of moisture on the double-glazed windows. A liveable greenhouse.

Now, in late, tropical summer, a frigid winter seems impossible. Our outdoor humidity is at 73% while we shelter indoors, refreshed by central air (set to a reasonable 78'F - is that reasonable?). But winter will come, as it always does, and tropical forest will join us for the duration.

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66 Square Feet - The Book

Summer in the jungle

And it's August. July slid by, filled with walks and picnics, and wild scents and red fruits. 

The terrace has filled out to its summer jungle voluptuousness. Fennel has shot up and is flowering and the South African milkweed is about to begin, too. Cardamom and galangal and black pepper and sand ginger throw tropical parties at night, after we have gone to bed.

What is missing is last year's lush screen of moonflowers on the birch poles, and also the raspberry along the railing (removed because of its incurable virus, and replaced with another, after scrubbing and sterilizing the pot). I regret the moonflowers, but an extremely late sowing of an unusual white lablab bean from Abbie Zabar's stash may still have time to climb. It's a baby. I also cut the Clematis 'Etoile Violette' right back to provoke more flowers in...guessing...mid September. (You can see the first one I grew here, in the original 66 Square Feet in Cobble Hill - funny, that post has an almost identical title.)

After a lavender hiccup (mistake, their roots needed more room) the windowboxes are fluffy with a yellow Agastache cultivar from the Gowanus Nursery, Nemesias that have not stopped flowering since spring (they are a wildflower from South Africa's Western Cape, in bloom there after wet winters, so it's fascinating that these can withstand intense New York humidity), and more South Africans: the daises are an Osteospermum, also planted in April. 

I made this warm salad that warm night by grilling tomatoes over coals, splashing them liberally with very good soy sauce (Ohsawa nama shoyu), adding crushed purple basil from the pot on the terrace, and a shredded sesame leaf (Perilla, but not the frilly shiso, which tastes a little different). 

Stuff? The pink sparkling wine is Graham Beck Brut rosé, a cold treat on a warm night. The kikoi is one of the endless collection that I stockpile after a South African trip (it's been 17 months, and counting) and the pillow covers I ordered online from A Love Supreme, also Cape Town-based. The ibis plates are from Anthropologie's discontinued Nature Table series designed by the whimsically wonderful artist Lou Rota (you can still find this series squirreled away on eBay).

So, there it is. Our oasis within Delta variant life.  Everything changes while it stays the same. We garden. we walk, we cook, we order in. Forage-picnics (for now) still happen, but proof of vaccination is required. We adapt, we wash our hands. We wait.

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Next Walks? - 5th and 7th of August

July terrace

July, and the Silk Road lilies have opened. They are taller than I am. During these hot days they hold their breath, but towards late afternoon their scent is increasingly released. By evening, the whole terrace smells like cloves.

The right hand side of the terrace is also home to the Thai limes (Citrus hystrix). I recently re-potted them - again - due to suspected root rot. They were doing very well and putting out new growth, but a week of tropical and daily rain in early June, followed by a mad and humid day in the 90's, apparently resurrected a dormant pathogen. This time, in their very mixed potting media (with lots of big bark chips) I included a fungicide, a very expensive additive that is my last and extremely reluctant weapon in the root rot fight. Now we wait. 

Also, the black raspberry has been removed. It came from its nursery last year with a virus that I was too ignorant to identify at the time. Its pot was scrubbed and sterilized, and a new raspberry is in its place. And I bought a self pollinating hardy kiwi, too. 

The other side of the terrace is now home to the healthy yuzu (Citrus juno) - moved far (that's relative) from the sick limes, just in case, as well as Liatris, a collection of hyssops (Agastache), fennel and Calamintha, whose long-lasting flowers are all so attractive to pollinators. Except, I've barely seen any insects this summer. Still, the chimney swifts patrolling above us must be eating something. Inbetween are the happy, undemanding bay tree and prickly ash. And, of course, the stone table, where we so often eat supper, and watch the world above our heads (last night it was a low-flying osprey).

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Find me on Instagram @66squarefeet

A new summer brings cherries

It wasn't always like this.

That Nanking cherry bowl has been empty, until this midsummer. Because I couldn't find them. Until last spring, I hadn't even identified them. 

Rewind: I posted about The Case of the Mysterious Blossoms early in the pandemic, last March. When their leaves appeared I was at last able to identify them: Prunus tomentosa, commonly known as Nanking cherry.

I walked passed dozens of them at Fort Tilden, one of my favorite city escapes. The backroads are always quiet. The waves on the long, long beach can be heard through the dense shoreline thickets. Sometimes a cyclist (or tricyclist) passes. And, until this year, parking was allowed nearby from September through May (now it appears to have been forbidden, completely).

Regardless of identification, I had never seen these shrubs with fruit on them. Even last June, just one or two sad-looking fruits.

But about ten days ago I received a message on Instagram from Jing Yang, who has attended many of my forage walks (she has earned frequent walker miles - yes, those are a thing). "Marie, please help me ID this plant?" And there was a photo of the Nanking cherries. Loaded with, groaning with, festooned with, vivid and glistening fruit. I squealed. And went out twice within days to collect them. Once in blazing sun on my own, and once in pouring rain, with Jing.

They are gorgeous and unbelievably abundant. Why now? Was it the slow spring, this year? Are they susceptible to frost damage, since they bloom so early, in March, well before our last frost date?

The flavor of the fruit seemed to vary from shrub to shrub. Some were mildly sweet, while others were sweet with a very good tart, backbone. I grazed as I gathered.

They are an anomaly. Feral here, yet apparently cultivated by many gardeners. I have seen them nowhere else. Could they have been spread by birds from the local community garden, where there is now no Nanking cherry in sight? 

At home, the foodmill began to crank (it's Oxo, low-tech, and very, very helpful).

When I work with unfamiliar foods that I may later write about or include in a book I have to measure. One cup of Nanking cherries weights how much? And yields how much pulp? So cooking means hopping from one side of the kitchen counter to the other as I weigh and notate. I froze a lot of raw pulp to deploy later, in new recipes.

They made a very glossy, gorgeous jam.

And a very frothy cocktail (I used the skimmings of the jam, mixed it with lemon juice and gin, and topped it with lots of tonic, and a sprig of hyssop).

I wonder what they will do, next year?

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Forage, Harvest, Feast - A Wild-Inspired Cuisine

How to have a holiday

For me, much of the appeal of traveling - even a small distance - is to meet the plants that grow in the other place. (I can't imagine what it is like not to see plants, and perhaps people who don't, or can't, lead more focused lives?) And if some of those plants are edible, it is an intense pleasure to use them in the kitchen. It's an immersion in place and season. (Also, I just like to eat.)

So in coastal Maine bayberry (Morella pensylvanica) has featured frequently. Last night's dinner was a shepherd's pie, made partly to use up leftover meaty pieces that I'd braaied when a friend came over for supper (hi, Friend!), and partly to amuse the Frenchman, who adores the rustic dish. This time I added a lot of young bayberry leaves, still at that tender, chewable stage. And topped the ragú with stamped potatoes (because our cottage has no masher or potato ricer, so stamp, stamp, stamp).

Fir and spruce tips are still new and soft up here (as opposed to down there in New York) and so there is a batch of very fragrant fir salt drying on the wide table in the wide room with the endless, wide windows. Air-drying keeps the flavor better than oven-drying.

The benefits of car travel: you can carry heavy luggage home. So, vermouth. I always finish my vermouths with perfumed (edible) flowers, infused overnight in the wine I use for blending. That relatively brief soak captures their scent. And the countryside is covered with lilac bushes in bloom. Like clouds across the green fields.

For vermouth basics see the Mugwort Chapter of Forage, Harvest, Feast.

The longer infusions (in vodka) were forest-heavy: fir, spruce, hemlock (Tsuga, not Conium), as well as bayberry and a syrup of baby spruce cones (the pink glass). Into the wine they go, according to taste, and now it is bottled. Downeast Vermouth.

On a hike we found a massive lilac on an abandoned farmstead. The bush must have been 15 feet across and bowed down with flowers. So some came home, where I stripped the blossoms to infuse in honey I had bought at the side of the road from a stall that also sold eggs. No human in sight, just a jar for money. 

And yes, I bought eggs, too.

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Find me on Instagram

@marie_viljoen

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