Working the Earth

Immature pomegranate in late May

So much of our late spring and all of summer has been about harvesting from the earth.

In early April we harvested the wild oregano just before the buds bloomed and stored the cuttings upside down from our high shelves in the kitchen until the several weeks before the leaves are completely dry.  Opinions abound as to how to prepare the spice mix.  Some advocate including the bud heads, while others claim that only the leaves are worthy of retaining.  Some say to store the leaves and buds whole while others recommend grinding them to ease cooking with the spice. 

In late April we joined just about every household in planting our perivoli (kitchen garden).  I was surprised to learn that just about everyone buys starter plants from Athens.  I would have expected a more local approach.  For irrigation we are doing the local method of laying the young plants in trenches dug on an east-west axis and flooding the trenches every other day with a simple portable hose system.  We missed the chance to fertilize while tilling so, instead, we are applying goat manure tea on a weekly basis. 

Loquats ready for harvest

Come May the wild capers are ready to harvest.  Friend Ioanna calls them ‘God’s gift’ because the plant is such a beauty to the eye while also supplying a variety of tasty treats.  Besides the more common way of harvesting while the buds are still small then preserving in salt, there are the other methods of harvesting.  The young leaves that surround the bud can be pickled and served as a garnish on a salad.  Or, the more mature and larger buds (just as the flower petal begins to show) are sun dried for storage, then boiled quickly and pulsed into caper salad.  If one is patient enough to wait until later, it is possible to harvest the bigger bulbs (about the size of an olive) after the flower is spent.  These can be salted, as is done with the more common method, and served as a flavor enhancer. 

In May, with the lambs and goats sacrificed to the Easter celebrations, animal husbanders become busy with the extra milk by making cheeses.  Mizithra is a feta of a softer consistency and quick to make and consume.  Manoura is a salty hard cheese brought to maturity with a wine musk wrap and stored on bamboo shelves hung from the ceilings of kitchens. 

June brings on the apricot harvest and the end of June welcomes the first harvests of tomatoes, cucumbers, arugula, other greens, peppers and even the first of the watermelon. 

Ioanna's gift of apricots

June is also when the lavender flowers are spent and it is time to harvest and distill for the oil.  If the lavender is cut while in full bloom, then the oils can be captured in the flowers to make sachets.  These are commonly placed in closets to scare away mites, moths, mosquitoes and other tiny pests.  The oils of a lemon or rose scented geranium are also distilled at this time of year.  The oils are used to flavor almond cookies or to make a perfume.  I hear that a mix of lavender and rose geranium oil makes a lovely scent.  Through a trade-in-kind arrangement, I helped Lulu to harvest her 500 lavender plants.  This was an exchange for her 4 hours of workshop time teaching me how to use Photoshop to process digital photos for my book.  My friend Nasia and several of Lulu’s friends joined us.  We chatted while clipping or hanging the bundles from ceilings and took so many cold mint tea and cookie breaks that the time felt like a day’s worth of ‘kafe klatsch’.   By the end of the day every building in her themonia (farm), including her bedroom, was strung with lavender bundles on chains attached to the ceiling.  Now, when passing by the farm, the aroma of lavender pleases every passerby.  I will do this again, given the opportunity!

Have tools; can harvest lavender

Lavender ceiling

Yannis, our goat herding neighbor, spies on my perivoli and offers unsolicited sage advice that is much welcomed.  I think he feels sorry for us as he witnesses the slow meager development of our tiny plot.  I suspect that we started a month too late, using nourishment-depleted soil, and with a week’s worth of Beaufort 6 winds stressing our plants.  Nevertheless, we watch daily growth with amused interest and produce arugula, basil, tomatoes, onions, peppers, eggplants and melons for our table.  In sympathy of our meager results, Yannis drops off his overly abundant leftovers from his own wind-protected perivoli.  Yesterday’s bag of lusciously red tomatoes inspired a culinary frenzy to prepare Imam (stuffed and roasted eggplant) and tabouleh.  Maria, our Greek teacher, also pushes into our arms chicken eggs, zucchini and parsley from her mother-in-law’s farm.  In practicality, I see no reason to cultivate our own garden given the generosity of our friends.  But, we are not always practical creatures, are we?

Back in Berkeley I will miss this ready access to the earth’s daily bounty.  Or, is a project to replicate such in our future?