Tobacco 2

Posted on April 24, 2016 by prd

Greetings Dear Readers, earthbound or nay. This transmission comes to you from the usual place on the usual frequency. Those transmissions encoded in the shifting shapes of clouds and the specific patterns of raindrops landing I will not take responsibility for, though I will reluctantly acknowledge to contributing, albeit to the most minor of extents, to that grander milieu of phenomena. Thus are the skids of mysterious incredulity greased.

Today’s post, a trifle long in being made, follows up on last August’s Tobacco 1 post, wherein our hero, Umgurk, having lost his reindeer, and it being dark and cold, sets forth… (wait, that’s not what it’s about). That prior post detailed a little of the history of tobacco and that I was seeing how it grew. Following that post came the tale of a strange ark, not a water bound ark, that would carry life forms (plants) across a condition they could not survive (winter) with ample room for roots. OK, looked at another way it’s just a large wooden flower pot, but strange ark is much more poetic and suggestive to the imagination.

I had put the chosen tobacco plants which otherwise would have died and set them in the strange ark. All winter long I watered them and throve they mightily. By the end of March behold –

with flowers no less

Not long after these pictures,, the largest of the plants fell under weight of its luxuriant leaves. This told me it was time to harvest the first batch of those leaves. The internet is full of accounts of how tobacco leaves are to be dried, subsequently fermented (cured), and thereafter used. At the end of last summer when I had many tiny (3 or four inch) leaves I had tried to dry a few. When stuck together they would molder. Those not moldy were somewhat fragrant. I tried an experiment – you heard it here first – I had some bluefish (I seek the collective permission of the universe to refer to the bluefish as mackerel here – there are meaningful similarities, a dark fishy-fish, though of course there are differences too) so anyway I had this mackerel (how easy was that?) and a whole bunch of fresh tobacco leaves – what about tobacco smoked mackerel? How could an avenue as appealing as this have gone unexplored by earthly civilization? Forty or fifty little leaves later (thrown into the grill underneath the fish), and it did produce a zaftig fragrance, I possessed the prize. A similar result might have been produced by soaking the fish in water long standing in un-emptied ashtrays … but not really. I just think that important adjustments might need to be made such as how many leaves, how much fire, tiger mackerel?, under which stars, etc. The culinary road to heaven crosses many uncontemplated byways.

Trying to be fair to the many forms of goodness available in our universe I did consider the converse, of setting the leaves (misted) on the grill and the mackerel into the fire itself, so that the mackerel smoke could condition the tobacco. I think that such tobacco would really open olfactory minds. That idea is filed under “For another time”.

Back to the main theme, then. I clipped off the biggest dozen leaves from the fallen plant and stood it back up. I strung the leaves on a wire next to a heating vent in the workshop, hoping that the flow of air would deter mold.

and as yet (+ ten days) there is no mold. The leaves continue to feel damp. It is surprising how much moisture they contain and how strongly they clutch it.

Episode 3 of this series may feature efforts at curing and fermenting (assuming the drying does not fail), further escapades in tobacco-fish synergies, news of subsequent generations (the lead plant, having flowered, has produced many seed pods), or heaven knows. Until that time may you thrive peacefully, or lean more in that direction, or not find the pain of being unable to thrive to be unspeakably odious, or – just do your best, ok?

Wintergreen

Posted on December 4, 2015 by prd

This will not be such a learned post, in that I could/should provide a host of links to educative references, so forgive me those who have come to rely on those. Here’s one link though, Wintergreen, that should give gross background, more than that this is a flavor of chewing gum.

The basics here are that it grows in the many oak/pine/maple woods locally and for decades I’ve occasionally picked and bruised a leaf just to smell the very lovely smell, thought of in gum as a kind of mint but really not being a mint at all. Nowadays they get the same flavor from birch twigs so these little leaves get left alone. The plant grows very close the ground, never gets big, but the leaves stay green in the winter. I wonder how it got its name?

I did enough online research to learn that the native Americans made a medicinal tea from it and that just boiling the leaves does a very poor job of extracting either their flavor or their virtue. OK, I did do enough research to learn that the Wampanoag word for it is gôgôwibagok. Say it five times fast. Seems that to extract the flavor and goodness it must be allowed to ferment for some days in a warm place, till it starts to bubble. I washed the leaves, put them in a water bottle, and set them on the windowsill.

Days pass. And more, as if days pass of their own volition. I notice the bubbles. Smells good. Ten days I let it ferment, or at least sit in tepid water. The water vaguely tinted brown. The bubbles never got too rowdy. Eventually I figured I had to boil, test, and bottle.

So far the test has gone well. I drank five ounces 45 minutes ago and here I am typing. The active ingredient is methyl salicylate, a cousin of salicylic acid, which in turn is the active component in aspirin. The easing of aches and pains and the reduction of fever really were the only highlights I could expect, and I did not have aches nor a fever, so I’ll take the absence of detriment as the ok for this concoction. Be warned though, methyl salicylate is toxic in sufficient quantities and you should probably only go this route if your insatiable natural curiosity so commands. To temper the warning though, folk wisdom is wise for a reason. In their day, these leaves helped the sick. You’d have to go way way beyond soaking a handful of leaves in water for a few days, like off the spectrum beyond, to turn a natural medicine into an unnatural disaster.

Anyway these are my happy bits for the day. May you explore the natural world with continuing ontological wonder.

Vigor

Posted on October 31, 2015 by prd

or perhaps vigor with no outlet. Perhaps all revved up with no place to go.

In this case we have the resolution of the matter of Box 17, which spent a week in limbo, unclear as to whether it would take up local residence as a plant pot or would have to take its chances in the great big world. Long story short, the local authorities issued a variance in the grand design, and so it was deployed.

The main focus of this post though is on the captive plants, those that reach a point where their captivity is much at odds with their instinctual drives. Plants want to grow. The palm tree here had pushed up the soil in its previous pot easily four inches above the brim. Transplanting it I could see how. These are the roots I pruned off.

What a tremendous amount of vigor in that root system.

I’ve never done any root pruning before and I hope not to again. I can see it in the context of having a plant that grew mal-adaptive roots because of unnatural constraints, as here. I hope not to put plants in that position. The current placement of that palm tree in Box 17 could well keep it satisfied for five to seven years. I can note on my list of accomplishments that I temporarily removed one invisible stress. How I would like rather to say that I had fundamentally aligned vigor with opportunity. Maybe to small extent, but it does make one think.

That under which

Posted on October 17, 2015 by prd

It is almost dark on the night when the first frost will visit. Not that it is not an integral part of the circle of life, yet doom it is to so many. This cosmos, for example,

was late in being planted. It managed one bloom, but will not seed. Tomorrow it will have fallen. Next to it some blue flower, also late planted, also bloomed but will not seed.

I have taken also a photo of the sky under which is here.

It’s almost as if it could snow. May the winter be gentle to you, dear readers, and the spring find you strong and ready.

Harvest 2015

Posted on September 29, 2015 by prd

‘Twas a year of not much planting, as other work during the spring took up most of the time. I don’t like the phrase when one door closes one door opens – I think it suggests a balance that while it may exist in the aggregate, like flipping a coin, tells us very little about the likely sequence of events. I could, were I to believe in what such a phrase suggests, believe that the not planting of the usual contingent of seeds and seedling led to this harvest of acorns. I do not choose to believe that.

Many was the year I would gather acorns, never in great quantity, but always far more than for which I had use. It was that each somehow seemed by itself a desirable thing, justifying the gathering. I’ve had that feeling all my life – I don’t know why. I romantically speculate that it has something to do with ancient genes. They say that humans have eaten more acorns than all the crops ever grown since we became farmers. Verify that!

In 2012 there were a lot of acorns where I live, and, compelled as I can be by them, I gathered quite a few, even taking my younger daughter out on a gathering mission. What intrepid hominids we were. We shelled them, leeched out the tannins with multiple soakings in water, roasted them, ground them, and made both acorn butter and acorn chocolate chip cookies. it came out very well, but to say that there was little demand would be to radically exaggerate the demand. Nonetheless, I wanted to do the acorn harvest/make food thing now that I have (since June 2013) a comfortable posting place. I could be that demand was so low because the message really only got to about twelve disinterested souls. Now it can get to thousands of disinterested souls and be memorialized forever wherever it is that internet bits go when they no longer live where first imagined, somewhere where some Spock in future times will say “Computer – tell me the first known internet publication concerning the harvesting of acorns and the making of acorn chocolate chip cookies” and of course, this will pop up like magic and the Federation will glide further toward glory.

Okay, okay – here is a bowl of them. Gathered in about an hour. Perhaps five pounds. A post will soon follow where I take them them through the transformation to foodstuff.

On this gathering mission I took my faithful companion, to see if he had the disposition to perhaps train as an acorn hound.

To and fro he ran with great excitement, never once stopping for an acorn. Even as I scrounged the forest floor picking up acorn after acorn. Even as they fell at times nearly right upon us. He was not interested.

Since this post is nominally about the harvest this year, let me also share the radishes, spoken of here originally.

For them a special fate awaits, to become half-sour Daikon spears. Will advise on that. Also I saved some 75 of their seeds, so next year is at least secure on the radish front. On the one hand, this is not the sort of a harvest that will contribute much to getting through the winter. On the other hand though, well, perhaps this prototyping of fringe nutritional pathways will prove to be just the thing somewhere far down the road.

Radish Tales

Posted on September 20, 2015 by prd

This story, or these stories, end up starting perhaps eighteen months ago with an accidental rescue operation. I was taking my mother to the new Asian supermarket in the area so she could see all of the wonderfully different things there. We were in the produce area and there were a few vegetables that spoke to me. It was how fresh they were, how not dead, as if they were saying ‘but, but, we want to keep living’. Little leaves were growing even as they lay on the shelves. Man’s inhumanity to vegetables on full display. One was a clump of ginseng roots, the other a fairly large Korean radish. I bought them with no intent except to put them back in the ground. Outside in the parking lot I kept telling them “It’s ok, it’s ok – no one is going to hurt you now”. Perhaps it was March of 2014.

I put them both in my vegetable garden, the ginseng in a shady back corner, the radish in one of the front boxes. By May I had almost forgotten of the rescue operation when up vibrantly came a torrent of shoots from the radish. Because she was mature and had so much radish energy stored these shoots progressed very rapidly to flower, light purple flowers, and lots of them, and all summer long they bloomed. When I noticed the radish activity I check on the ginseng. They too (there were five of them in the package I got) had put up leaves and even looked as if they were fixing to flower (they had buds) in June. I had to consider the rescue a big success. Come mid-June though some critter must have taken a fancy to the ginseng. Chewed off at the ground it was. Rabbits sneak into the garden often enough, they are the number one suspect.

Anyway Momma Radish kept on blooming, as I said, and started then to produce what looked like miniature edamame, pods with multiple seeds – it is probably that I’d just never beheld the radish circle of life before. I gathered some thirty to fifty of these pods from late summer to October. During that summer we had also gotten a puppy and by the time autumn came he was fully enamored of digging. Somewhere along the line he dig up Momma Radish, who was going to die shortly of natural causes anyway, and she served as a retrieval toy for a week or so. A full life indeed.

The winter was among the worst in the memory of the living hereabouts. Ten feet of snow, and often bitter cold too. That’s not exactly part of the radish story, but it sweetens any tale of resurrection or resurgence. When finally winter receded, and it was late, well into April I was quite behind in my normal seed planting rhythms I don’t think I got a seed into the ground until late May. The radish seeds though, they germinated explosively (in a figurative sense). They pushed out leaves and down roots and you’d think they were dandelions on steroids the way they grew. By early July here is one of them.

I had quite a few and so I planted some here and there, did a little more research on them (the basic link is daikon), gave some to family, and stood back in wonder. It was a busy summer work-wise, I did not get to pay attention day to day the way I would have liked. I heard that one that I had given to my mother was doing very well. They harvested it in August I think and it was enormous. I hear that they are pretty low in nutrition though, that one should not be so amazed by their abundant size because they pack about as much nutrition as a regular sized tomato – maybe, if they’re lucky.

I’ve not harvested mine yet. I bought a big bucket of first quality half-sour pickles recently though, really just for the brine, because I think they will pickle well. That’s a lot of radish pickles I’m signing up for. I sure hope they’re good.

A few pictures then, now that you have fuller context. First the protruding mass of one, I think it’s the same one as in the July picture.

Then the seed pods with some purple flowers too. You know I’ll be gathering said pods before pickling time.

and lastly, the dancing swirl of the dervish radish flowers – it would be a music both slow and wild, with a constancy of strength beneath it that belied the light movement and the delicate flowers. Do click on the pictures. Seeing the detail bring the story to life.

Tobacco 1

Posted on August 19, 2015 by prd

Certainly tobacco has been one of the most significant plants of the last 500 years, in terms of the fascination people have with it (addiction you might call it), and the awful way it has been used by corporations to profit at the expense of abused consumers. Man’s inhumanity to man.

I must confess a fascination though with how it took this place of influence early on. Did Indians chew leaves for strength? The whole idea of smoking it – where did that come from? Our ethnobotanical history intrigues me a great deal. Was the plant itself somehow compelling or spell-binding?

This summer I decided to grow some, as the witnessing of a plant from seed to fruit gives a lot of information, Here are some in my tombstone oak porch planter, where I usually hold the annual Darwin games (wherein some variety of unknown seeds are sown to see which ones emerge the survivor).

It takes what would be called high heat (soil temps >= 70F) for the tiny seeds – I mean tiny seeds, ten times smaller than a poppy seed – to germinate. Once they get started though they do take off. I’ve yet to see anything beyond leafing as yet, the look like lettuce, but I’d like it to flower. It’s another solanaceae – Nicotiniana Tabacum, and I have a long documented interest in this wondrous plant family.

I’ve looked around a little at all the material on the subject, how to cure leaves, how to roll cigars, modern uses (syrup, cocktail garnishes), I have not yet made specific plans for how to use the leaves but I’m delighted with the prospect of starting from the source and seeing what is possible… use them in salads? As with so many things it is not recommended that you try this at home and each use will be well researched before being undertaken. Fun though. More on this as it goes.

Lulo Flowers

Posted on August 19, 2015 by prd

or – finally!

One can’t be impatient with nature, or if one can’t help it, it’s not really going to help, at the very least. You may have read my very bumpy tale of Solanaceae, wherein I recount many experiences of growing tomato cousins, many hopes, many bits of education as hopes and realities are vigorously juxtaposed.

Witness this summer, my final surviving lulo, now three years old, has produced flowers. I am delighted. I am sincerely inclined to hope for fruit, as to bear fruit is the ultimate culmination, yes, that one seeks. Maybe I’ve gotten too patient. I am very happy that it has flowered – no lulo has graced me with such yet. If it should bear fruit I will count a second delight. For the moment though I am happy with the progress. This is a spiny one too.

It’s been a weird summer, hot and dry but then pouring then hot and dry. Further updates will follow. All the best to you dear readers.

Refusing to Die

Posted on May 24, 2015 by prd

There is little I love so much, especially when something is so seemingly dead that odds makers look with delight at the prospect of counting it out and taking bets to the contrary, than something that refuses to die. This eucalyptus, I’m pretty sure it’s a Eucalyptus cneorifolia, the narrow-leafed Eucalyptus from Kangaroo Island off southern Australia, that the aboriginals know as the ‘Isle of the Dead’.

Twice now it’s gone nearly leafless, and it’s not deciduous, due to neglect when I’ve been traveling. This time I thought it was gone for sure when I got home, having only one completely green and three partially green leaves. Weeks go by, four of them. I am pretty much ready to give it up. Of course I water and examine during these times of final ebbing.

Sacrebleu! It refuses to die. Notice the lignotuber, how it is has done it’s part, and also even on the more central branches how new leaves come forth. Clicking on the images will reveal more.

Maybe ten years ago I’d written a haiku (several, actually, but only one relevant here that I’ll share/(burden you) with. The idea here was not the wonder of those things that refuse to die, as wondrous as those things are, but more the way trees and things grow –

As this tree rises
unquestioning to the sun
may I also rise

That’s all for the moment, just sharing the bits that otherwise might escape. All goodness to ye, fair readers.

Fox

Posted on April 30, 2015 by prd

Yesterday morning past my office door ran a vixen. I grabbed the camera and chased barefoot. Caught her (via camera) in the bamboo grove. I love the way once they have about a hundred feet of distance they just stand and look at you, like ‘Really?’.

She is raising her young by an old barn across the street. My neighbor was stealthy enough to get a nice video. I’ll ask if I can post it. I think she (the fox) comes back here to hunt squirrels. Over the harsh winter we fattened up at least four of them – they grew very brazen. It seems they also grew a bit slow of foot – is that one hanging out of the foxes mouth?

Nature.

Splashdown

It's a strange new world

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