EcoNewMexico.com

I drink wine and have noticed a few new words on bottles in the wine shop. Natural, Sustainable, Organic and Biodynamic are appearing on certain wine labels. As I'm learning about wine and grapes I thought I should learn about sustainable wine making. It turns out that viticulture (the science of growing wine grapes) is a complex science and sustainability adds to the complexity. So, I started small by touring a sustainable winery on the central coast of California.

The monsoon rains have been coming pretty regularly and everything in the garden is growing with vim and vigor. I expect that the various squash and other vining plants will soon break out of their beds and overwhelm any slow moving bystanders. Of course that includes the weeds, but the fruit and veggies are keeping pace. My only worry is that I might miss pulling any of the insidious Siberian Elm (aka Chinese Elm) seedlings that are sprouting from any and everywhere.

I would have written sooner but I’ve been canning. The apricots are here and it’s game on.

Due to an amazing turn of weather this spring, fruit trees all over town actually escaped a late frost and managed to set fruit. It has been several years since this miracle happened last and right now I see piles of apricots lying in the street all over the place. It practically makes me want to weep. Pick your fruit, people! Someone, somewhere will appreciate it not only because it is delicious but also because you can avoid attracting vermin to your neighborhood in search of rotting sweets.

All that drippy sounding stuff I said in April about spring being here? Forget I ever mentioned it. It proceeded to snow again amidst the usual punishing wind of a New Mexico spring. The only good side to that is that I can make soup without feeling like I’m clinging to the wonders of winter cooking. I really can move forward when situations change, really I can. But soup is so wonderful, what can I say.

The birds are singing, La! The fruit trees are blossoming, La! All this April is busting out all over, but the bummer of taxes due remains. And what a bummer it was. We wrote checks, we crammed forms into envelopes, we raised our voices in thanks for TurboTax, and then off to the post office and the bloody things were off. We have made our contribution to civilization.

Gardening last year was pretty frustrating. Weeks of hot and dry weather stunted growth in most gardens in the area. A scorching summer was followed by ravenous grasshoppers that ravaged our fall greens. But, Spring is all about renewal and promise. The very same garden bed that was mowed flat by grasshoppers in the fall is now coated with surprise greens.

It's hard to tell now with a fresh blanket of snow on the ground, but this is garden planning season. Days are getting longer and the Spring Solstice is less than a month away. Farmers and gardeners, even rank amateurs like myself, are excitedly thumbing through seed catalogs and websites, anticipating that day when seedlings can brave the elements.

I have two pounds of sunchokes in my refrigerator and I'm scared of them.

Oh, I'm sure they will be delicious but the cleaning of them puts fear in my heart. Perhaps, like many things in life, if I just had a stiff drink before facing them with vegetable scrub brush in hand, it would go a lot easier.

Put on your party clothes and grab some beads folks, it's carnival time! Specifically, Carnival of the Green. This is a traveling blog show filled with links about green living, sustainability and whatever else is floating about the 'green blogosphere'. Scroll down, you may find some tips you like, environmental issues, or a discussion you want to join in. Oh, thanks for visiting EcoNewMexico.com where we blather on about practical ideas for sustainable living in the American Southwest!

Thursday, December 10, 2009
Pickup bag of produce. It is naturally chilled and I look over the bounty. My mind starts churning with ideas. Everything gets looked over and put away once I get home. The persimmons get a special nest since they are quite soft. I’ll have to think of a good use for them quite soon.