Posts Tagged ‘edible plants’
scraps of paper
Occasionally I tackle a stack of stray papers. These are usually bits saved years ago, once thought important. Sometimes I find a scrap of poetry among receipts and old letters. Poetry scribbled when an idea occurs, on any scrap within reach.
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This week I found a draft poem about following rules and the evidence left behind by bad behavior. I have always loved picking blackberries, so it is no surprise to me that picking blackberries was used as a metaphor in the poem.
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defiance
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no denying
the evidence —
pulled threads
and stained fingers
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one drupe
with all its packets
could never mark
so well, each finger
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rolled across the page
indigo tongue
and purple lips, words
blackberry-spoken
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the rule — never take
the path through woods
stick to the road, resist
blueberries, blackberries
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avoid the risk
of bears and brambles
hints of danger
in faerie tales
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Last spring I spent time pulling together some of my many poems into three upcoming books of poetry. This poem will fit well into my manuscript titled ‘niche,’ poems about the spaces plants, animals and people occupy.
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All my best!
Follow the rules of social distancing!
Stay safe!
Jane
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harvesting herbs
The colder nights have arrived and I have decided it is time to harvest my herbs.
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I have a lot of parsley in my deck garden. All summer, I have snacked every day on the leaves, loving the taste, the fresh air feeling that is the result.
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I enjoyed the harvest as well. With scissors, I cut the parsley leaves just below the branching of stems.
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I checked each set of leaves for bugs but the parsley is remarkably bug-free.
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I harvested into my colander, washed the leaves and set them to air-dry. Once the leaves are dry, I will load them into my drier, a Salton VitaPro. In a drying time of about three hours, I will have enough parsley for winter cooking.
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I have followed a similar process with my basil. Everything around me smells really good!!
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Hope you are enjoying your own produce if you are lucky enough to have a garden.
Enjoy your day.
Stay safe.
Do. Not. Get. Covid. Fatigue!
All my best,
Jane
Do you love picking berries, herbs, other plants from the garden? I think you’d like my book of poetry ‘within easy reach’ (Chapel street Editions, 2016). It is illustrated with my drawings and contains notes on various example of the edible ‘wild.’ Order it here.
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where we step
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my brother and I explore
the old home place, overgrown
and unused, the house fallen
into the cellar, a sock
tossed into the dresser drawer
but, barefoot not an option
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even shod, we are careful
of our feet – nails, glass, bricks
from the chimney, unease creeps
beneath the grass – we watch for
the water well, covered but
with rotted boards
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hard not to love where we step –
the mint enfolds our ankles,
rose and rosemary, our minds
chives lace our sneakers, fold
flowers from purple papers
lavender leans on the walls
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silver, graceful and wise,
the sage surveys our ruin,
thyme is bruised,
everywhere we step
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Stay safe.
All my best!
Jane
Blackberry picking
On Monday we drove from our cabin down to the lake (on our newly-mowed road) and picked a bowl of wild blackberries. The brambles were brutal and we came away with several scratches between us. But we picked berries to the tremolo of the loon on the lake and will enjoy a ‘blackberry buckle’ later this week. Blackberry buckle is made by adding sugar and water to the berries and covering with spoonfuls of dumpling mix. The dumplings cook in the steam of the simmering berries.
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All my best,
Jane
a feast of wild strawberries
This week at our cabin the wild strawberries are hanging from their stems. When I see them I think of the sweet wild strawberry jam my mom used to make. And, after this weekend, I will think of cedar waxwings.
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As we sat in the cabin, eating our dinner, we saw a bird making trips between the birch tree in front of the cabin and the grassy field to the side, where the wild strawberries grow.
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My husband identified the bird and spotted where it perched in the tree. The cedar waxwing is one of the common birds at the cabin. They love to eat fruit and we have wild strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries on the property.
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There were two cedar waxwings on the branch, sharing a meal of wild strawberries. Sharing fruit is a ritual behavior between male and female cedar waxwings.
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The cedar waxwings nest in our big white pines and sing in the top branches of other nearby trees. I will never see them without thinking of their little feast of berries.
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All my best,
Jane
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Green bottles and blue berries
We have been spending time at our cabin.
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In the window, on our bench, the light flows through green bottles.
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Our paths are green tunnels.
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And in the fields and along the trails are blueberries.
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Lots to pick and eat.
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bitter blue
for Mom
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of all the silvery summer days we spent none so warm sun on granite boulders round blue berry field miles across hazy miles away from hearing anything but bees
and berries
plopping in the pail
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beside you I draped my lazy bones on bushes crushed berries and thick red leaves over moss dark animal trails nudged between rocks berries baking brown musk rising to meet blue heat
or the still fleet scent
of a waxy berry bell
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melting in my mouth crammed with fruit sometimes pulled from laden stems more often scooped from your pail full ripe blue pulp and the bitter shock of a hard green berry never ripe
or a shield bug
with frantic legs
and an edge to her shell
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From ‘within easy reach’, Chapel Street Editions, 2016
Previously published in The Amethyst Review 1 (2), Summer 1993
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Copyright 2017 Jane Tims
Tendrils
My cucumber vines are still thriving …
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And the tendrils are still so charming!
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This one wants to pull up a chair!
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On Friday, I had my first cucumber salad from my vines!
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Copyright 2017 Jane Tims
wildflowers – Bladder campion
One of my favorite roadside flowers is the Bladder campion, Silene vulgaris (Moench) Garcke. The flowers are white, with five deeply lobed petals. The flowers protrude from an inflated, papery calyx, greenish, purple-veined and bladder-like. This time of year, the flowers are almost past.
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I love the scientific generic name Silene, derived from the name of a Greek woodland deity. Another common name for Bladder campion is maidenstears.
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The leaves of Bladder campion are edible, used raw in a salad or cooked in a stew.
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Copyright 2017 Jane Tims
those don’t look like French fries!
This time of year in eastern New Brunswick and elsewhere, the potato fields are flourishing and many are in bloom.
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I am so grateful for those potato fields. I love French fries, so much so that I limit my intake by making promises to myself and my son (something like: I promise to eat French fries only once per week for the next three months. I usually stick to these promises because I make them for a specific time.
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I love other potato products. I make great potato salad (potatoes, Miracle Whip, onions, bacon bits, mustard, green relish, pepper and basil). We also eat potato and leek soup regularly (a great hot-day supper). And, of course, potatoes are an ingredient in every stew I make through the winter.
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But although we love potatoes, do we ever appreciate their very pretty flowers? Like so many things, we fail to see their beauty unless we look.
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Copyright Jane Tims 2017
spring flowers – service berry bushes
At this time of year, many ditches and fields in New Brunswick are filled with Serviceberry bushes in bloom. Their delicate white flowers only last a short while but later, in summer, we will be able to pick sweet Serviceberries.
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the shad are running
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after hard rain
and thin wind
between cold front and warm
riverbanks overflow
and for dinner we have fiddleheads
potatoes and shad, served
with last summer’s Serviceberry jam
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Serviceberry bushes are torn fish nets
holes poked through with fingers
white petals scattered over mossy stones
on the river shore
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Published as ‘the shad are running’ in within easy reach, 2016, Chapel Street Editions
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Copyright Jane Tims 2017
nichepoetryandprose 