Frozen Green

I took this photo this week while I was outside harvesting some salad greens in the morning. There's nothing quite like picking your evening's salad with numb fingers. But at least it was picturesque.

I found a great article on foraging for salad greens among the garden weeds, which expands upon one of my regular reader's suggestions regarding chickweed (thank you, Ericswan). In the article, Arthur Lee Jacobson, a Seattle-based horticulture author, insists that he never buys lettuce. It's no secret that wild plants contain more health-protective nutrients, but I also recently found out that during the Great Depression desperate people reverted to eating the leaves and roots of just such weeds. You may be surprised which weeds are edible, I know that I was.

Touching on this note, I also stumbled upon a great blog entry at Peak Oil Blues about the difference between being "green" and being, what is now described as "brown." Brown is essentially the extreme of being green, to the point of shunning consumerism.

With the economy the way it is, I invision more and more people becoming "brown" without necessarily doing it for environmental reasons and I could also see those who would-be "green" opting for "brown" or maybe they'd prefer to call themselves "frozen green?"

Harvest Mostly In

Last night was our first freeze of the season. I scrambled to take in everything I could that I had not already brought in. As dusk hit and daylight quickly receded, I was pulling bean pods half-blindly. I noticed myself relying more on my sense of touch and less on straining my eyes to discern bean pods from stalks and felted leaves. While I may not have picked every last pod, I did fill a 2 gallon bucket to over-brimming.

The best part of my evening was actually sitting and removing the yin yang beans from their pods. After so many days this week of absorbing current economic events, it was relaxing to sit by a warm fire and watch my harvest amount to a humble, yet substantial hill of beans.


About a week ago, before regular rains returned to our area, I brought in the Indian corn to dry. I can't really explain to you how magical it was to pull back the different hued husks and find jewel-toned kernels shining in unpredictable colors beneath. That was quite a memorable moment.

There are still apples to be brought in from the frosts and fall veggies to be transplanted into their winter beds. The garden season is nearing a close but it remains a race to the finish.