"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch,
you must first create the universe."
-- Carl Sagan
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| Homegrown Macintosh apples 8-27-14 |
"The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago.
The second best time is now."
-- Unknown
Roughly 16 years ago, my husband and my son, Sam, planted two scrawny, skinny, leafless sticks in our back yard.
They said they were apple trees.
I was skeptical.
They looked like dead twigs.
But ...
They were indeed apple trees, albeit in their infancy.
Now our two scrawny trees (I call them "Two Tree Orchard") are full and lush, towering over the backyard fence, their down-turning branches heavily laden with ripening fruit.
Yesterday I was mowing the grass under them and the branches kept whacking me in the head and apples kept dropping to the ground. So I harvested an armful. The apples are just a tad too green for eating yet, but cooked down with some sugar, cinnamon and butter, they made pretty good applesauce.
Later, when the apples are a little bit riper, I'll make as many quarts of sauce as I can so we can eat it all winter long.
And I have all kinds of plans for cobblers, crisps, breads, cakes and pies.
I like being a suburban farmer, with my tiny little orchard and my tiny little garden.
It makes me feel more than good to cultivate and feed myself and my family the freshest possible food on the planet -- fruits and vegetables that come in straight from the backyard mere minutes before they hit the plate.
It doesn't get any gooder than that.
