Butterfly Dreams

 In yesterday's post , I suggested prioritizing health and flavor when shopping and gardening.   In traditional cultures around the world, seeds from favorite varieties are saved and treasured! These are from plants which grow well in one's area, and those passed down in our families or given us by friends.   In Coming Home to Eat , ethnobotanist and folklorist Gary Paul Nabhan tells of making a pilgrimage from his home in the Sonoran Dessert of Arizona to visit cousins in the Bekáa Valley of Lebanon.  One afternoon, Gary visited a field of squash with his cousin Nicholas, and asked if he had any herb or vegetable seeds that had come down through the family. Nicholas nodded and opened a cabinet full of hand lettered seed envelopes and bags. After wrapping and labeling small packets of eggplant, cucumber, grains, pepper, parsley, zucchini and tomato seeds, he offered info on their individual planting and growing needs.  Gary shared about his work w...

 Winter is prime time for garden planning, and savoring the bounty in seed catalogs with a warm cuppa is a cozy way to cheer up cold grey days! Morning cuppa A favorite organic gardener and chef in Wales, Gaz Oakley, reminds us to consider flavor, and include heritage varieties! A vegan himself, he has a little flock of retired rescue hens, in charge of pest management, providing companionship and fertility - and his neighbors are grateful for the eggs!  Black cap raspberries   From my garden journal, 2006,  "For too long vegetable gardening has been obsessed with shape and SIZE.  Better that care be lavished from tilth to table on growing tasty food, whose beauty is a bi-product to be relished."  Montague Don, the Sensuous gardener.  In a later chapter, Don comments that there was a shift to growing for size and quantity when men took on a larger role, as there's  'an inbuilt relationship between Horticulture and gastronomy when the person(s) coo...