Roots & Fruits

We’ve been in our new home for just over three months now. Though, if I’m being honest, it feels like much, much longer.

Inside, we’ve been figuring out storage, adjusting to a tiny kitchen with very little counter space, navigating passive solar and the beginnings to what’s shaping up to be a brutal summer, and thoroughly enjoying sharing a smaller space as a family and having less square footage to clean.

Outside, the property is bustling with activity, teasing us with it’s magnificence, testing our patience, and teaching us how to care for it all.

The orchard is bursting with baby fruit, soaking up all the sun and water it can hold and promising a bounty unlike any we’ve ever known before. With all but four of the 60 fruit trees growing abundance and the berries in bloom, we will have our hands more than full in no time flat!  We’ve already begun harvesting sweet and sour cherries and the apples, peaches, plums, and pears won’t be too far behind, though I think the first round of blackberries just might have them beat.

We’re planning U-Pick parties and Cider Pressing Parties, and anticipating freezing, canning, and dehydrating ourselves into a frenzy for at least three months as Summer slides into Fall (it’s a good thing I’m taking our local County Extensions Master Food Preserver course, ha?).

The garlic has all been pulled and is gently curing on the front porch until next weekend when I’ll spend some time braiding a good portion of it for further curing and safekeeping.

This garlic harvest is our largest yet and I’m so grateful we had the foresight to put down some roots via our little garlic patch in the fall when we first made the commitment to move to this property. Such a lovely, tangible process to cultivate our small patch and watch it grow and thrive as we packed, moved, and began settling in our new space.

With most of our state in an extreme or exceptional drought, we decided against plowing and replanting the first and second fields in an effort to conserve water and, instead, focus on the orchard and berries as our top priority.

That being said, if I’m being completely honest, there are still four ears of beautiful seed corn I saved from last year’s harvest that are begging to be put in the ground…and with the garlic harvested, there’s a nice little plot already fenced in that could serve as a nice stand of blue corn.

We’ll see, though. My guilt may just get the best of me.

Pushing worry aside, I did accept the importance (for my heart and my kitchen) of creating an herb garden and did so with great joy.

Thanks in large part to my oldest daughter, I have the loveliest beds right off our front porch filled to the brim with countless herbs and pollinator-friendly flowers, including a ton of cosmos planted from seed my mom, Grandma, and Aunt traded and grew over the course of decades.

Included in those two beds are a large sage and an insane amount of savory. Due to our absolute lack of a winter, the sage went into bloom in May so I’m playing with preservation techniques. I currently have two quarts of dried sage blossoms I’m thinking I might use for tea (or in a tea blend) as well as a jar of blossoms infusing themselves into a bit of apple cider vinegar.

I also plopped a rhubarb plant and a black cherry tomato into one of the beds because…well…who can resist rhubarb and tomatoes (separately, of course).

Last, but certainly not least…

Joy of all joys, we recently discovered that Cota Tea (also known as Indian Tea or Navajo Tea) grows wild and abundant on our property. We first noticed a few plants next to the Acequia right up by the house, but upon further exploration down the fields, we’ve discovered more tea than we could have ever imagined!

We’re harvesting, bundling, and drying it as fast as we can, and I’m so incredibly grateful for the endless glass of refreshing iced Cota Tea that is now gracing this brutally hot slide into Summer we’re experiencing. I mean, really, any edible plant that grows in abundance in the high desert in an exceptional drought has got to be magic, don’t you think?

And so, as we settle in and find our new normal, tired and continuously in our Learning Zone, I am humbled by the abundance of this land and feeling so very grateful for the opportunity to care for this space and ourselves as our next steps unfold before us over the next few years.

I hope your slide from one season to the next is filled with everything you need it to be and your dreams are unfolding before you.

xoxo,
M

I might add…

As I look back on my abysmal posting habits in 2018, I must admit that this year may just hold the fewest blog posts and the largest harvests yet 😉 Stay tuned.