The Edible Landscape: Winter Solstice 2011

In the weak winter sunlight, I head out to the garden and come back two minutes later, shivering and feeling chilled through. I notice the last cherry tomato plant still struggles to grow despite the cold. It’s dark by 5:00 and I just want to curl up on the couch.

On the back deck, nestled against the glass kitchen doors, the lemon tree sparkles with raindrops and baby lemons, warmed by tiny lights to protect it from the frost. It seeks warmth, just like I do. The Daphne at the edge of the deck is studded with pink buds waiting to open, and baby’s tears are spreading along the stepping stones into the yard where camellias are budding and beyond them the bare branches of the kiwi vine are laden with fuzzy brown fruit, exposed to the winter light now that the leaves have all dropped.

I planted the kiwis about 10 years ago, and although the female vine has been flowering and fruiting for the past several years, last year was the first time I actually harvested a ripe kiwi—in January. This year the first kiwi ripened before Halloween. According to something I read, kiwi season is November, but I’ve discovered over time that plants have their own inner clock and I can’t count on something ripening “on time” or even at all! The kiwi vine, climbing up its trellis, is charming to look at in any season—but it’s thrilling to have a piece of fresh fruit from the garden this time of year, long after the peaches, berries, apples and pears have been harvested.

The pyracantha hedge is covered with orange berries, the only bit of bright color in the landscape. Arugula and mint are still abundant, livening up my soups and salads. Baby mustards are sprouting and deep green kale and chard are thriving in the damp chill.

In the late 1800s, my great-grandfather on my mother’s side emigrated from Russia to homestead in Winnipeg, Canada. Then he moved the family to Minneapolis, and finally to Baltimore. There, my grandmother (the oldest daughter) met and married my grandfather, who had journeyed from the old country to escape conscription into the Czar’s army, landing in Baltimore about 1900 with everything he owned on his back.
My dad’s parents also left Russia, settling in Washington, D.C., where my dad was born. I’m eternally grateful that my ancestors had the good sense to get themselves out of Russia. I was born in Washington, a place with distinctly milder winters than Russia, Winnipeg or Minneapolis. But not mild enough for me—in 1969, I moved to San Francisco. On New Year’s Day 1970, I enjoyed a sunny day on the beach; I thought I’d gone to heaven!

Some 40 years later, I’m so glad that I live in Northern California. While the East Coast—not to mention the Old Country and The Midwest—are suffering from freezing temperatures and snowstorms, here in my backyard I’m picking lettuce and greens for dinner. I am grateful for the foresight, genetic impulse (or possibly just dumb luck) to go somewhere warmer, which got me here to my favorite place on earth, Sebastopol.
Although I’d had the desire to grow my own food since reading Little House in the Big Woods (borrowing it from the public library over and over as a kid), my life as a gardener began after I moved to downtown Sebastopol from the country, where I could pick apples off the trees, but lacked the conditions to have a vegetable garden. There was scarce water and no deer fences. What I did have were gophers beneath rock-hard clay soil.

Also, to be honest, I had no idea what I was doing. Once I moved to town where water flows out of a tap, the deer stay clear and the gophers have not yet invaded (fingers crossed), I am learning with advice from friends, a lot of reading, plus days of back-aching labor and much trial and error, to grow food.
It’s still a miracle to me when I plant something and it actually becomes dinner. And these days I can practically count on something to eat or drink from the garden every day, if it’s only a glass of mint tea or a salad of arugula and dandelion. I’m not the homesteader like my great-grandfather or Laura Ingalls Wilder’s father, dependent as they were on survival from their harvests, but I’m happy to be eating something fresh and healthy from the garden on a daily basis.

In the winter garden, two patches of garlic, planted in October, have sprouted from the soil, watched over by the graceful bare branches of the peach tree. I harvested my first Arbequina olives last week (also not “on schedule”) and have them soaking in brine in a gallon jar. It’ll be quite a few months before they are edible, but sometime late next summer I hope to be sitting in the garden under the kiwi vine, nibbling olives with cheese and crackers and a glass of wine. These are the visions that sustain me in January when it’s too cold to get out there and play in the dirt. And as the Solstice marks the return of the light, I’m contented in my chosen land.   •

KIWI LIME PIE
Makes 8 servings
1 graham-cracker crumb pie crust ?(pre-made or use recipe on a box of ?graham crackers or crumbs)
14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk
Grated rind of two limes, green part only
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
Ripe kiwis for garnish
Whipped cream and ?fresh mint leaves for garnish

Bake pie crust for 8 minutes at 350 degrees. Let cool.
Put sweetened condensed milk, lime rind and lime juice in a bowl. Stir until well combined. Pour into cooled graham cracker crust. Chill for at least 2 hours.
Before serving, cut kiwis in half and remove skin by running a spoon around the fruit close to the skin. Peel back skin and slice kiwi fruit into 1/8-inch slices. Arrange kiwi slices on top of filling. Cut serving pieces and garnish with whipped cream and mint.