Autumn Newsletter November 2010

Autumn Newsletter: November, 2010

It’s November, and we are deep into autumn’s dry and windy days.  I just hung our Hoshigaki, and now there are two rows of gorgeous peeled persimmons hanging from strings in my dining room, looking like orange lanterns.

I learned how to make these three or four years ago, and already they have become a kind of autumn tradition.  I have shown several of my friends how to do this, too. My friend Shirley lets me have persimmons from her tree, a 75-year old beauty that towers over her garage.  It has huge leaves, and some of the leaves were already turning red when we picked last week.  This year’s crop was not near as heavy as last year’s – perhaps the tree needed a bit of a rest.  But the fruit this year, though less of it, seems larger.

To make Hoshigaki, which are whole Hachiya persimmons, dried by the Japanese method, one must first choose firm but ripe persimmons.  They should be fully orange, but not the least bit soft.  When you pick them, leave a little stem – you will need this to tie the persimmon to a string.

The persimmons are then peeled, by first peeling the flat top with a paring knife, leaving the stem and calyx intact.  Then from the shoulders down, peel with a wide, sharp peeler to the tip of the fruit.  The peeled persimmons are then tied to a string, one at each end, and looped over a bamboo pole.  I balance the poles between two chair backs in my dining room, where they will hang for a couple of months.  It’s warm and dry in that room this time of year.

After a few days the massaging process begins…gently massage each persimmon. This will eventually flatten them into a shape that dries more easily, and the massaging breaks up the persimmon pulp, bringing the sugars to the surface of the fruit. When you massage the persimmons, you need to be careful, because as they ripen they become soft and jelly-like inside.  All the how-to details are better found on a website, such as www.instructables.com/id/HoshiGaki/, complete with pictures.

You can also order excellent Hoshigaki from www.penrynorchardspecialties.com, if you don’t want to make your own.  In fact it was Jeff Rieger and Laurence Hauben of Penryn Orchards and Market Forays who taught a class in making Hoshigaki here in Santa Barbara. It’s a simple technique, and a great way to use all those ripe persimmons.

I have planted three persimmon trees, a Hachiya for making Hoshigaki, a fuyu, and a maru; the last two aren’t for Hoshigaki, but can be eaten when crisp, and the maru is a lovely chocolate brown color.  My trees are young and haven’t fruited yet, but I look forward to someday having our own fruit.  Until then, it is wonderful to have a generous friend with a generous tree.  Thank you, Shirley.

The Season of Nasturtiums

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It’s June, the season of the nasturtiums.  The rose season is just past, at least in our yard, or until the next bloom cycle.  It always seems that May brings the most roses, all blooming at once.  But now nasturtiums are everywhere; I see them when I walk or drive around the neighborhood, spread in partial shade under native oaks. We don’t have many at our house, though, just a few tucked in under a tall hedge along our driveway. I love their spicy color more than their spicy flavor, though I do love my friend Pat’s recipe for nasturtium pesto.  Consequently I just planted nasturtium seeds under two live oaks, where I hope eventually they will make an orange, yellow and red carpet under the rope hammock. It’s a blissful spot to spend a warm summer day, with a book.  Or maybe no book – just a nap.  The hum of the bees will lull you to sleep.

It’s the season of the yarrow, which is blooming in our meadow.  It’s mostly a soft white, though when we planted the seed it was supposed to come up magenta; there are just a few of those.  It is the season of birthdays in our family:  three of our children have their birthdays in June.  It’s the season of graduations, endings, but also beginnings: season of the beginning of summer.  It’s the season of dahlia plants, which are just springing up in our garden.  I just planted a few more, rather late, but they will just bloom later in the season.  With luck, we’ll have them through October.  I had so many bulbs after I divided my old ones that I couldn’t plant them all, must give some away.  Oh, to have dahlias everywhere! But the reality of preparing beds for more of them is too much work and fuss right now.

It’s the season of hydrangeas swelling; a few have bloomed, but most of ours have only spread their spectacular leaves. Hydrangeas will forever remind me of my grandmother’s huge plants outside her living room window on Vancouver Island, large spiders dangling among the pale pink and blue flowers.

It’s the beginning of the season of resting, those lazy days of summer, which have not seemed to find their way to our house enough lately.  Then I remember: June is always like this, there are too many events ushering out the end of the school year (just as its opposite, December is crazy-busy too.)  Those lazy days might not appear until late July, or August. It’s still the season of planting:  we’re late this year.  We’re still picking the last of the favas, planted in March, and have only planted a few tomatoes. We’re still harvesting asparagus, though not as often as we did in May, and we have quite a few blood oranges, meyer lemons, a few grapefruit, and our first Haas avocados. In a few more weeks will come the nectarines (Panamint), apricots (Blenheim), and peaches (Red Baron). We pick blackberries and boysenberries every morning, and the tiny mulberries from the weeping mulberry trees are getting sweet.  In July there will be many more.

I’d like to plant some beans and hills of squash, and more tomatoes this next week.  Never mind about making the garden beds perfect, and arranging the stones in a spiral pattern on the sunny hill where we make our summer garden – got to get those babies in the ground!  Funny, not getting things planted is making me rather anxious.  I have to remind myself that it’s okay, I’m off to a writing workshop later this month, and that writing is a nurturing process in itself.  I’m gardening a book, which takes time and attention, and if I have to take a little break from actual gardening, there’s another season a’coming.  And, there is always our farmer’s market, the lazy (or busy) gardener’s saving grace.

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