Month: August 2012

Peaches and cream

For years, fats have been so demonized that I avoided cream. Now I confess that I keep cream in the refrigerator all the time. Cream makes a great base for a quick sauce for fish or vegetables. And of course there’s peaches and cream.

I buy organic cream from Whole Foods. Most of what is sold as cream these days is full of adulterants.

Unfortunately, I didn’t grow those peaches. I had a great peach crop coming along, but a raccoon got into the trees and stole every last one of them. No doubt it was the same raccoon that also stole all the corn and made a wreck of the garden in doing so.

I can’t bring myself to shoot a raccoon — at least not yet. I need to make a winter project of making the garden and orchard fence raccoon-proof. There are spots where they can get under the fence. With those spots fixed, and some work around the gates, a raccoon-proof fence should be possible. I might even throw in a low run of electrical wire to discourage meddling.

A sacred summer ritual

For many years, I’ve wanted to get myself into a situation in which I could can tomatoes. If your situation permits the growing and canning of tomatoes, you’re all set. It’s a yardstick against which you can measure your lifestyle.

But it took so long! Even after I bought the land, it was seven more years. The steps, roughly, are:

  • 1. Buy your land
  • 2. Build your house
  • 3. Build a garden fence (maybe some areas could do without a fence)
  • 4. Rehabilitate and prepare your garden soil, organically
  • 5. Deal with the irrigation problem
  • 6. Grow enough tomatoes to produce at least one peck of surplus tomatoes that ripen together

    • If you fumble a step, you lose a year. For example, last year I did not have irrigation. Hot, dry weather torched the garden. This year, the irrigation system made a huge difference. And in the early years of the Acorn Abbey project, my hands were too full to get around to things like preparing the garden soil or building the garden fence.

    Why do we work so hard for tomatoes? I think it’s not just because they’re so good eat. I think it’s because tomatoes are sacred.