2 years in America, my phone contract is up for renewal, and I am coming to realize that I just don’t want an iPhone, or any other “cool” phone. Maybe I want a Razr, they were cool phones once. It’s nice to know that my friend Kenan doesn’t really want one either.
Instead of playing word jumble or brick breaking games on the subway, I’ll read John Steinbeck (the other day a woman tapped me as I was reading East of Eden and asked if I was reading that for school or for fun. When I said for fun she was impressed; I wonder would she would have thought if I had been reading The Production of Space?)
Not that I am anti-technology, mind you. I very much appreciate my sewing machine, which I used to make a banner for the Crow Hill Community Garden, and am using to piece together some blocks for a quilt (one for myself and my home, this time).
Also, I like my new dehydrator, gifted by Emily in her going-away-paring down. Sara, my awesome new roommate, and I made kale chips, with kale she grew in her friend Stefan’s garden.
A few weeks ago, I stumbled into a plot at the Crow Hill Community Garden. I showed up to dig and help out, got offered a plot, and had it filled with seeds and plants by the end of the day. (That was also the day that Ghana beat America in soccer, and I don’t normally care about sports, but that was spectacular).
This is what my plot looked like then:
Collards around the outside, beans and cilantro and peas and some other seeds in the ground.
And this is what it looks like now:
My beans, getting all big and stuff.
Hot peppers, sprouting out of the ground.
A green pepper, growing.
I bought some plants from the Natty Garden shop and put them in (I wasn’t going to rely just on things from seed this late in the season), and the green peppers are starting to produce fruit.
I’m calling the whole thing the pipe garden, because I excavated this piece of pipe when I was digging up the earth, and put in it in the garden, and planted these little flowers in it.
In addition to the Crown Hill Community Garden, the Little Franklin Garden is doing alright too. Last week, someone stole my tomato, which is unsurprising, but it would have made more sense to wait until it turned red. Why steal unripe produce? Anyhow, that same plant is growing another little tomato; growing just keeps chugging along.
Monday was watermelon-rind pickling day. Man–that’s a serious process. Even just peeling and cubing the rinds is tons of work (that was done slowly, as I ate up watermelon). Then soaking in brine. Then rinsing and boiling. Then boiling sugar and vinegar and fruit. Then adding the rinds back in. Then removing them and reducing the syrup. And then sterilizing and packing and processing. I went to bed much later than I should have; I hope these things are delicious in the end!
The recipe came from Vegan Soul Kitchen, which is not a canning book, but does have a whole section on no-waste watermelon. There are recipes in 2 other of my canning books, maybe I’ll try those too. Watermelons produce a lot of rind…
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