Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Finding Free Fruit

The peach tree on the backside of the parking area at MK's has fruit forming! You know my mantra: The only thing better than cheap is free. Last summer I picked bags and bags of peaches from this tree and Cree ate so many that he made himself sick. I look forward to doing the same this year as well with a similar outcome.
Down the alley there's a Damson plum tree and I picked those last summer too. Then, along the river there's an endless stand of Mulberry trees. Bela and I stood under them last summer eating berries until our mouths were stained purple.
I am relentless in my foraging! It's how I found the clutch of lemon balm growing under some mutant jumble of a once shrub-like growth. It's also how I discovered some lovage growing wild, which I initially thought was some sort of wild celery because of how it smelled and its deeply ribbed stalks, but no.
If civilization collapses we'll at least eat, and probably have really crappy homemade wine to wash it all down with.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jennifer! I love that you forage like that!

Why let wild blackberries, etc. go to waste?
;-)

As a young child, I would often read my father's Mother Earth News and I learned so much about organic gardening and edible plants. I would taste edible flowers and even make sugared rose petals and tea (e.g. sassafras) for my family. I even tried eating dandelion buds.

The other day, I found an article on foraging for edible plants and they wrote about eating dandelion buds (picked before they bloomed and turned bitter). I was delighted to see that I wasn't just a "strange child." ;-)

Here's the link: http://www.edibleboston.net/content/index.
php/articles/summer-2006.htm

Anonymous said...

Well, okay...
I was still a "strange child."
;-)

jennifer from pittsburgh said...

Oh H, I know what you mean. All of those 'weeds' are something, usually edible, like plantain, or purslane. And most of them are richer in nutrients than the domesticated stuff, so I always throw a bit in the salad bowl just for fun :)
We really need to go on a foraging hike this summer and then have a big dinner!