i hope you eat good food, grow beautiful things, and have more love than you know what to do with.
I have two Akebia (Akebia Quinata) in my garden, one on either side of the gate to the back. It’s a lovely vine (although I have no idea why it’s called “chocolate” as it neither smells nor tastes like cocoa.) Drought tolerant, it’s hardy from …
This is an easy sweets recipe from my childhood in Taiwan–Bing Tang Hu Lu. Of the memories that I could see in my mind’s eye, my dad coming home with a skewer of hawberry tang hu lu sticks is one of the most vivid of …
I was so excited when I saw a goji (Lycium chinense or Lycium barbarum) plant for sale at my local nursery, ladened with fruit. The first time I tried it, after the initial burst of sweetness, it became so bitter I spat it out, and …
I was walking through my garden, taking stock of things, and realized that my Hardy Chicago figs had ripened. I picked them, ones which were soft and drooping, ate a few on my way back into the house, and then set to make a simple …
Figs (ficus carica) is a fruit that we often come across in higher end supermarkets, expensive, but oh so delicious. We all have that grandpa/uncle/old neighbor next door who tell tales of their fig trees producing bountiful fruit, but it gets a little daunting when …
One of the plants I grow every year is the tomato (solanum lycopersicum). My husband is part Italian, and although when I was younger, I didn’t like tomatoes at all, it has grown on me, especially when sliced thick and paired with a nice wedge …
Haskaps, or Honeyberry, or Edible Honeysuckle (lonicera caerulea) is part of the honeysuckle family (and not all honeysuckles are edible) that produces fruit very similar to blueberries. It’s cold hardy as hell (some are hardy all the way to zone 2!) and unlike blueberries, tolerate …
I was always curious about the taste of gooseberries (ribes uva-crispa syn. ribes grossularia) but had never had the opportunity to try one. It seem financially irresponsible to buy a pie or a jar of jam of something that I wasn’t sure I’d like (and …
Raspberries (rubus idaeus) belong to the rubus family which includes blackberries, thimbleberries, brambleberries, tayberries, etc. and can readily cross breed with them, so new varieties are constantly coming out. Some people find them invasive–but honestly, what’s so bad about a fruit that vigorously propagates itself? …
Regular strawberries are nice, but sadly we neither eat enough of it, nor have the patience to really protect it from all the creatures that want to devour it. The fruit sizes are varied, some years giving large ones, other years giving rise to strangely …