When the Almond Tree Blooms

On Monday of last week I finally got around to harvesting the quince tree growing along a country road in South Sutter County.  I passed along this stretch of road many times on my way from one rice field to another and always found it pleasing because it is lined with walnut groves and homesteads whose yards abound with fruit trees.  I noticed the quince tree but never stopped to collect the fruit until that chilly December afternoon.  Quince Tree, Striplin Road Sutter County, CA For those of you unfamiliar with quince, it is a lumpy yellow-green fruit whose size ranges between apple and football.  Unlike most contemporary fruit, whose growers and buyers prize uniformity and perfection in appearance, every quince has a unique shape and is covered with a thin fuzz.  When eaten raw, quince has an astringent, mouth puckering taste, but when cooked it becomes very delicious.  Quince's popularity throughout the world in countries like Turkey, England, Spain...

Aunt Nancy and Uncle Marc's Garden, Bainbridge Island WA Carrots, my dad and I learned last Monday, have the most complex flavor of any vegetables, and the third most of any food, after chocolate and coffee. This was one of many nuggets of carrot knowledge we learned from John Navazio, a PhD and seed breeder who works for the Organic Seed Alliance. That organization sponsored the event, a chance for farmers, gardeners and anyone else to learn about carrot seed breeding and trials at Nash's Produce in the Dungeness Valley of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. The seed trials were sponsored by NOVIC, a collaborative that aims to develop seeds for organic farmers in the northern tier of the US, who need to produce a yield from fields that are often too wet or too cold. It wasn't too cold or rainy that day at Nash's, but the fields peered across were muddy from previous days' rain. We stood in our mud boots gazing across acres of carrot tops and pondering this c...

Another attempt to revive this blog yet again, complete with a new title and all. After a sometimes frenetic summer at the Farm and Garden, I find the fall lending itself to reflection and writing. As usual, the intent is to use this blog to stay in touch with folks I don't see everyday, and also to practice self-expression through writing and sometimes photos. So here I go again... It's been two weeks since I graduated from the Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture at UC Santa Cruz, and my hands show the passing of time since I left the farm. While at CASFS, dirt clung to the undersides of my fingernails and any cracks it could work its way into. It was always there, a pleasant reassurance of the joy of laboring in the soil. Now, having spent most of my post-farm time in cities, it is gone. But not for long. On the last day to move off the farm, Sunday October 17th, rain fell steadily from a gray sky, the first of its' kind we'd seen since June. It was ...

Well folks, I am here at the farm at UC Santa Cruz, listening to chirping frogs outside the library. It's been an eventful past couple of months meandering and adventuring since I left Park School. I'm tired from all this moving around so I'm not going to write too much tonight. After my trip to the Mojave and Eastern Sierra, I returned briefly to the Bay Area, but finding the urbanity of it strange and unfamiliar after so much empty space, I quickly departed, heading north to Full Belly farm, where my friend Rawley Johnson is working as an intern. My two days there were eventful, full of all kinds of experiences from digging holes and planting fruit trees until my hands and muscles ached to milking cows and goats to cooking a farm lunch. I savored the taste of fresh goat milk and the beautiful greens of springtime in the Capay. I also appreciated being able to work alongside some of the crew, speaking in Spanish and sharing a difficult job that is a reality of farm...