Tag Archives: strawberry tree

Gardeners happy in the weather.

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Strawberry tree (arbutus) fruit I didn’t get to eat.

Last week we got quite a drenching, and it was exhilarating. Early in the week the wind blew down pine needles and strawberry fruit, midweek featured 5+ inches falling on one day, and the day after that the landscaper “Dan” worked in the rain all day and installed many plants in my front yard. He was sopping at the end, and only quit when he did because he still had to drive an hour to get home before dark; his eyesight is not good and he’s having cataract surgeries starting this week — hence the need to accomplish as much as he could beforehand. The things not planted are waiting in the utility yard. Look at those ferns! I’ve never had ferns in my garden before.

I worked outside myself, consulting with Dan and looking on as he tested how plantable the soil was after all that wetting. We were both amazed to find bone dry soil under some of the areas that had been thickly covered in mulch. Other places near the borders of the space, with less mulch, standing water filled the holes several inches down, in clay, and he didn’t plant there. While Dan soldiered away completely exposed (in his thin rain suit), I spent most of my time in the garage with the big doors wide open, organizing, cleaning and sorting, and when I took things to the trash bins or did a little trimming of dead flowers, I didn’t get very wet. I was wearing waterproof boots and a rain jacket.

The temperature was mild, so we were able to enjoy our work and the invigorating weather without being cold. That air was a strong tonic. I was happy to get started on the small area of relandscaping, and to have someone to talk to about all the plants and how to arrange them; he said he always loves planting; we were both joyful because we are always greedy for rain in California. Oh, and it was definitely a relief to see the garage quite a bit tidier.

From time to time when I went into the house I would put another log in the stove, so that when darkness fell and I closed all the doors and window shades, oh how cozy I was.

Damp scents and extravagant gifts.

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The friend of a friend who gave me quinces last fall has given from her tree again, bless her heart. This time she didn’t drop them off at church, but I drove across the county a ways to pick up two boxes of fruit at her gate. This I was more than happy to do, because it is a gorgeous drive through hills and valleys, small vineyards and large gardens, along winding roads where every kind of tree imaginable has been planted to round out the natural oak forest.

It has rained and drizzled off and on the last two days, so every tuft of grass or turning leaf is extra fallish and delicious, all the scents mixed up with each other in the damp air. After I picked up my quinces and started back home, I wished so much that I could take a long walk in that part of the country; but the roads are quite narrow, I could not find a shoulder to park on, and I wasn’t wearing good shoes for that kind of outing. So I feasted my eyes on the sights as I rolled along, while my nose drank in the quince perfume from the back of the car.

When I got home, my copy of The Complete Brambly Hedge had arrived, after being delayed for months. Maybe I never had bought one of my own, or maybe I gave it away, but earlier this year I looked and looked and could not find one in the house, so I ordered it. As I leafed through its pages this afternoon I recognized the drama of autumn in the wonderful pictures. I think if I had been able to take that walk in the country, and to peer under the bushes, I would likely have glimpsed scenes like this one, from “Autumn Story”:

Similar things are going on in my own garden, and not just among the smallest creatures. I walked around this afternoon trimming this and that, and pulling long pine needles off of everything. Sunday I found the first ripe fig on the fig tree; this is a whole month later than ever before. Mentions on my blog in the past tell of their beginning to ripen as early as the third week of August. Normally they continue ripening into November, so I hope I might get at least a month’s worth of fruit.

fallish echinacea
Abutilon

I picked all the remaining (18) lemons from the tree, and was glad to see that, contrary to my fears of there not being much fruit to ripen this winter, lots of tiny lemons have showed up (above), and even blossoms. Somehow my tree is turning out to be a sort of everbearing lemon. That’s okay with me!

Strawberry Tree

The arbutus we call the strawberry tree has both unripe fruit and blossoms as well. I remember the grandboys on a ladder picking the fruit one Thanksgiving, so those treats are yet to come as well.

A Mediterranean Katydid visited me upstairs this week. I think I saw one of those here last year, too; do they like to come in the house for some reason? I assumed that this one would rather be outside, so after a couple of days of him migrating from one room to another and lastly surprising me on the bathroom faucet one morning, I got him into a jar and released him into the lemon basil clippings. But it was nice to have his company for a while.

Now — the lemons and quinces are calling me to get to work and put away their goodness against the winter. The sun is expected to come out tomorrow and we have some mildly warm days to look forward to; when the figs begin to come on strong I’ll be dehydrating them to put away, too. My own Autumn Story is one in which I am given, and am surrounded by, nourishing scents and fruits of the earth, and plenty of them.

Arbutus unedo

Maybe I should take figs.

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Last week’s weather caused a windfall of strawberry tree fruit (Arbutus unedo) on the ground. Much of it was in great shape, and there was more than I could eat fresh, so I tried dehydrating some. I’ve been getting figs, and I bought a box full of Jonathan and Golden Delicious apples, so I put a load of the three fruits into the box for about 16 hours.

I expected that as they dried, the tiny half-spheres would likely fall through the rack, so I put that rack on top, hoping they might get caught by larger pieces of fruit underneath.

The little buttons did fall through, but I caught them all sooner or later. They are chewy and crunchy and I hope I can preserve a few more of them this way before the harvest ends. The wind knocked down four lemons, too, which got into this picture.

The same day that I officially became a vermiculturist, an opossum wandered through my garden midmorning. I cornered him behind the snowball bush just to get his picture — not that I consider him particularly handsome… especially if I look at his mouth.

This weekend I’m headed up to Pippin’s to be present for Ivy’s tenth birthday celebration. Many of you commented on my announcement of her birth way back then! Here are pictures from previous years, including the Baggy Doll I made her for her first birthday.

I guess I’ve sewn more for Ivy than for any other grandchild. Two items — haha!

I haven’t made it up every year for her birthday, but often enough that I know it’s the right season for drinking in the beauty of my daughter’s extravagant dahlias, and for encountering deer on the property. I’ll leave you with this picture that Pippin sent me recently, of those neighbors looking for a handout. They might be wondering where the crabapples are; late frosts damaged their blossoms as well as destroying much of the apple crop in northern California this year. Maybe I should take them some figs!

The Zephyr brought joys.

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Liam’s papercrafting

While my son “Soldier” was away for a few weeks, his wife whom I call Joy brought all four children to California to see the grandparents. They came by train, the California Zephyr line, which gave me an excuse to tell them stories about my yearly summer train trips as a child to see my grandmother. The images that my mind retains through the decades related to those journeys are vivid. Many railway experiences of the current Amtrak era are worlds apart from what I knew, but I’m happy that the children had a new adventure, and even slept overnight on the train, which I never did.

Their lively group stayed with me five nights, and visited Joy’s family nearby as well. We were so busy all those days, I barely remembered to take any pictures, much less write about our fun.

braiding seagrass

Liam’s side of our Bananagrams game, using all his tiles.

We went to church, to the beach, to the cemetery — bringing along yarrow, zinnias, snapdragons and sunflowers for the children to lay on their grandpa’s grave. They are too young to remember him, so when we got home I showed them a photo slide show on the computer.

We took walks along the creek and to the neighborhood school’s playground. I read from Eleanor Farjeon’s The Little Bookroom as I had read to their cousins last month, and laughed hilariously over “The King’s Daughter Who Cried for the Moon.”

The children combed my garden to find everything I would confirm as edible. They gathered hundreds of manzanita berries from under that little tree and chewed on them, spitting out the several rock-hard seeds in each. The strawberry tree fruits are ripening now, but the tree has grown so tall that they needed a ladder and a broom to knock them down.

These children are, as we say, “good eaters.” No matter what strange concoction Grandma has made, they want to try it — even my ultra-spicy pudding that I make with the pulp left over from making ginger broth. When oatmeal or buckwheat porridge was on the breakfast menu, they loved having a smorgasbord of toppings, everything from peanut butter and milk to chopped dried apricots and this seed mix.

I was given a dozen homegrown peaches recently and I used a recipe from Smitten Kitchen to make a cobbler, half of which we ate for dessert one night, and the remainder next morning for the third course of our breakfast, after grapefruit and scrambled eggs.

It was delectable. Where the recipe called for vanilla or almond extract I used almond. I think if I make it again I will increase the amount of fruit, and use a little less cream or butter in the scone topping, with confidence of still being able to call it Plenty Rich. And I would like to try it with plums — or any fruit!

My dear people are headed back home to Colorado now, and the cobbler is gone…. The taste of scones and peaches is already fading, but Joy and her young joys made a big deposit of sweetness in my heart, to flavor many days to come.