Harvest

I've just been looking back over what I have written about gleaning, because I am preparing my midpoint grant report (thank you again, Episcopal Community Services - but what a month for someone involved with ministries of gardening, gleaning and preserving to have to write a report!) and am gearing up to mentor my first senior project (SVUSD) in gleaning.

It seems like an annual occurrence and a perennial problem - getting down to writing about food at the most food intense time of the year!

Two gleaning days this week, and the challenge of placing apples in a year when things are early and plentiful.  I've been feeling I must make something every evening with produce - what I call my squirrel complex - and I lost every weekend evening to one event or another - or just tiredness from two many different schmooze opportunities in one week, beginning with the Heirloom Festival.   Oh well - I've seen lots of friends and colleagues in the last week - and do have my supply of applesauce in the pantry, and 30 jars of  jam and chutney in the hall closet for the holiday fair at Trinity.

Tonight I made pesto for the freezer.  I read a recipe that subbed pecans for the worth-their-weight pine nuts, so tried that. Not quite sure what I think.  But I wasn't quite sure about sunflower seeds or cashews either.  Nothing has quite the combo of sweet and resinous that pignolis do.

At the garden, so far the thieving vandals are ahead of the gophers in reducing the numbers of my winter squash crop. Tomatoes are at their peak now.  Every time I do something with three or four pounds, I bring home as many two days later.  Mountain Magic, with it's ping pong to golf ball sized fruit, is most productive and has been a hit with everyone I gave a plant to on Rogation Sunday.   The romano pole beans have waned, but the late crop of french horticultural beans are racing the waning days to produce - and looking good.

I keep telling myself it's good to be tired because you are surrounded by produce.   And that's about as profound a reflection as I can manage...