Urban Homesteading (Lite)

Posted on 15 March, 2016

I love my garden, I really do.

The ‘but’ in that sentence just about shouts out, doesn’t it?

It isn’t the broken fingernails when I weed, or the watering or the pruning. It’s not the mowing or the raking and not even the pests. No, it’s not any of those things that bother me. It’s summer.

In my imagination everyone else is enjoying lazy days of icy cocktails and perfect tans whilst I’m in the kitchen watching my thorn-scarred ankles swell as I hover over a preserving pan, yet again, because it’s harvest time you see.

Once you have grown something, you can’t waste it. And besides our veggie patch we have job lots of citrus, berries in bulk, plenty of plums, many mulberries and stacks of stone fruit. I dare not let one tomato wither on the vine when I can turn it into semi-dried, herb-infused and bottled deliciousness. The oven has been running at 150° for days.

I’ve dehydrated, I’ve stewed, I’ve cooked and I have preserved. Everything.

We have more Asian Plum Sauce in our pantry than most Chinese restaurants would use in a year. Oh, ok, I’m lying … two years. Maybe three. Unless today’s obsession with pulled pork becomes tomorrow’s romance with spicy plum chicken, I can see my supply outlasting civilisation.

There are no vacant shelves left in the pantry, every friend has received bottled goodies and still the harvest continues. Excellent news if the Zombiepocalypse happens (as long as I get all the white sugar) but my calm has been damaged.

Last weekend it was cumquats. Curse you, you tiny, jeweled globes of citrusy fabulousness. Curse your sunshiny colour and your abundant growing habit!

On Saturday evening, in a happy glow of completed weekend tasks, just as I was about to pour a tall glass of evening relaxation, I glanced askance at the basket of cumquats and thought ‘yes, marmalade making tomorrow’ and (fatally) checked the recipe.

It started with these words: Slice the fruit thinly, removing (but retaining) seeds and soak in 4 cups of water overnight. Overnight. What?

I work full time and only had Sunday to cook, so (sighing and deleted-expletiving) I got out my sharpest knife. How hard could it be? Everyone on Masterchef can slice food wafer thin so I should be able to do it – right? There were only a couple of kilos after all (whimper).

I mashed and mangled several otherwise perfect fruits before I got any sort of technique going:

• slice in half lengthwise,
• notch down the centre
• deftly flick out the pithy bit with the seeds,
• turn cut side down onto the board and slice – thinly!

Then my fingers started to prune up with all the juice.

The same juice that snuck off the cutting board, slithered across the bench and daintily trickled down the cupboard door. I only realized what was happening when my laser focused brain (thinly sliced, thinly sliced, thinly sliced) registered my wet foot. Yuck. And don’t get me started on the seeds – slippery spawn of the devil I say.

I thinly sliced fingernails as well as fruit.

I thinly sliced the occasional finger – citrus juice STINGS!

And when I looked at the clock I had been at it for an hour. I wasn’t half way through the basket yet. Fingers on fire and beginning to cramp I soldiered on. Then my back began to ache (thinly sliced, ignore the pain, thinly sliced, thinly sliced).

By the 1.5 hour mark I was giving myself pep talks … and answering back. It was like Smeagol and Gollum.

‘Ooh its back hurtses.’

‘Worthless creature that slice is too fat.’

‘But it wants to rest, it does.’

Thinly, sliced, thinly sliced.

But my precious, my wine?’

Sod the wine, forget an evening meal, I just wanted to lie flat forever and never see another cumquat. More than two hours after I started it was finally done. Until the next day, marmalade meltdown day.

Why is it that when making jam I spend exactly half the time saying ‘boil goddam it’ and the other half rushing to turn down the heat as the pot bubbles over? Why is it that the time the mixture takes to gel is directly but inversely proportionate to the amount of time I don’t have to spend on this bloody cooking?

Why was I putting myself through all of this when I don’t even like marmalade?? Never again!

The scent of the fruit cooking was amazing though – sweeter than oranges and stronger than mandarins … like sugary Spanish bubbles popping in the pan. And then I tasted it. … not bad, I think Paddington Bear would approve … another spoon perhaps … maybe some fresh brown bread … real butter … warm marmalade – wow! Where have you been all my life?

I won’t be giving this to friends, no, no I likes it I does. It’s my preeshcious.

Bring on the next harvest.

Image of ‘cumquat…‘ via Shutterstock