Notes from The Currant Farm: The Call of the Wild

After a very strange 2011, weather wise, 2012 seems to be starting out on the same path. It’s been an unusually warm winter so far with very little snow and temperatures in the 30s and 40s most days. While some folks are grateful for this, farmers in the Northeast are concerned. Unusually warmer or colder weather affects everything in the natural world. The science that studies this is Phenology. Phenology examines recurring biological phenomena and their relationship to weather. Bird migration, hunting and gathering seasons, blooming of wildflowers and trees, and the seasonal appearance of insects are examples of phenological events that have been recorded for centuries. We have all observed that plants bloom earlier in warm springs. Insects also emerge earlier when it is warm. For this reason, plant phenology can be used to predict insect emergence. The use of plant phenology to predict insect activity is an old practice, with recorded observations dating back at least 300 years. Research at The Ohio State University has shown that plants bloom and insects emerge in virtually the same order every year, no matter what kind of weather occurred that winter or spring. For this reason, the flowering sequence of plants can be used as a biological calendar to predict insect activity, and to time other gardening practices that are dependent on a particular stage of plant development, such as propagation or weed control. The cold period of winter is necessary for northern fruit plants such as currants, to set their buds which are the precursor of the flowers and subsequent fruit. If there’s not enough cold, it’ll be a poor crop. If it is warm enough to encourage early blooming and we then get a freeze when the flowers are open, it could kill the entire harvest. It’s a pretty delicate balancing act that usually works out fine but only usually.

Our globe’s dance through the cosmos and the result on our climate is complex to say the least. The first day of winter marks the time when days grow colder even though the amount of daylight increases each day. The first day of summer is the beginning of the very hot season while the daylight decreases with each passing day. To add to the confusion, the first week in January, usually the coldest time of the year in the Northern hemisphere, is the time of the perihelion, when Earth reaches its closest point to the Sun.

I saw a bear poking around my compost pile the middle of December, long after he was supposed to be tucked in for his winter’s slumber and last week, robber bees from a strong hive somewhere nearby were attacking the new weaker colony I hived up 8 months ago and stealing their precious stores of honey. I’ll have to start feeding them to get them through until the first nectar flow. Of course, amidst all of this natural chaos, there are constants, one of which is a year round resident here on our farm. It’s a presence that we’re most often aware of in the dead of night and when they are most frenzied it can stand the hair up on the back of your neck. The eerie howls, yips, barks and, if they’re close enough, growls of the eastern Coyote are the stuff of legend and lore. Recent DNA research has proven that this distant cousin of the lanky, mangy looking western version is actually a cross with an eastern wolf. This explains their beautiful full coat, bushy tail and varied color patterns from yellow to grey.

They are about the size of a small German Shepard with pointy ears and alert intense eyes. Their numbers have been increasing over the last few decades to the point where they are now quite common although rarely seen due to their mostly nocturnal lifestyle. Their diet is an opportunistic one mainly of mice, insects, berries and rabbits and the occasional turkey when they can catch one as solitary hunters. They live in packs and there seems to be evidence that they are beginning to hunt in packs and take small or sickly deer. This development may help balance out the overpopulation of deer around these parts. Like most carnivores, they’ll readily avail themselves of carrion. The biggest problem with their proximity to humans is that they will also carry off the odd cat or small dog if the opportunity presents itself.

Nature is pretty much made up of eators and eatees and most eators become eatees eventually. Cycles and balance. The constant affray for balance perpetuates the cycles. The mouse that’s gnawing away the bark of my currant bush becomes dinner for the coyote which allows the currant bush to live producing a crop of currants which becomes the harvest of the farm and the healthy berries on your table. To live the agrarian life is to live with and be acutely aware of nature’s cycles. And even when, at 2am, my sleep is broken by the cold, soulless howl of predators nearby, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Cheers from the farm,

Greg

Notes from The Currant Farm: The Call of the Wild

After a very strange 2011, weather wise, 2012 seems to be starting out on the same path. It’s been an unusually warm winter so far with very little snow and temperatures in the 30s and 40s most days. While some folks are grateful for this, farmers in the Northeast are concerned. Unusually warmer or colder weather affects everything in the natural world. The science that studies this is Phenology. Phenology examines recurring biological phenomena and their relationship to weather. Bird migration, hunting and gathering seasons, blooming of wildflowers and trees, and the seasonal appearance of insects are examples of phenological events that have been recorded for centuries. We have all observed that plants bloom earlier in warm springs. Insects also emerge earlier when it is warm. For this reason, plant phenology can be used to predict insect emergence. The use of plant phenology to predict insect activity is an old practice, with recorded observations dating back at least 300 years. Research at The Ohio State University has shown that plants bloom and insects emerge in virtually the same order every year, no matter what kind of weather occurred that winter or spring. For this reason, the flowering sequence of plants can be used as a biological calendar to predict insect activity, and to time other gardening practices that are dependent on a particular stage of plant development, such as propagation or weed control. The cold period of winter is necessary for northern fruit plants such as currants, to set their buds which are the precursor of the flowers and subsequent fruit. If there’s not enough cold, it’ll be a poor crop. If it is warm enough to encourage early blooming and we then get a freeze when the flowers are open, it could kill the entire harvest. It’s a pretty delicate balancing act that usually works out fine but only usually.

Our globe’s dance through the cosmos and the result on our climate is complex to say the least. The first day of winter marks the time when days grow colder even though the amount of daylight increases each day. The first day of summer is the beginning of the very hot season while the daylight decreases with each passing day. To add to the confusion, the first week in January, usually the coldest time of the year in the Northern hemisphere, is the time of the perihelion, when Earth reaches its closest point to the Sun.

I saw a bear poking around my compost pile the middle of December, long after he was supposed to be tucked in for his winter’s slumber and last week, robber bees from a strong hive somewhere nearby were attacking the new weaker colony I hived up 8 months ago and stealing their precious stores of honey. I’ll have to start feeding them to get them through until the first nectar flow. Of course, amidst all of this natural chaos, there are constants, one of which is a year round resident here on our farm. It’s a presence that we’re most often aware of in the dead of night and when they are most frenzied it can stand the hair up on the back of your neck. The eerie howls, yips, barks and, if they’re close enough, growls of the eastern Coyote are the stuff of legend and lore. Recent DNA research has proven that this distant cousin of the lanky, mangy looking western version is actually a cross with an eastern wolf. This explains their beautiful full coat, bushy tail and varied color patterns from yellow to grey.

They are about the size of a small German Shepard with pointy ears and alert intense eyes. Their numbers have been increasing over the last few decades to the point where they are now quite common although rarely seen due to their mostly nocturnal lifestyle. Their diet is an opportunistic one mainly of mice, insects, berries and rabbits and the occasional turkey when they can catch one as solitary hunters. They live in packs and there seems to be evidence that they are beginning to hunt in packs and take small or sickly deer. This development may help balance out the overpopulation of deer around these parts. Like most carnivores, they’ll readily avail themselves of carrion. The biggest problem with their proximity to humans is that they will also carry off the odd cat or small dog if the opportunity presents itself.

Nature is pretty much made up of eators and eatees and most eators become eatees eventually. Cycles and balance. The constant affray for balance perpetuates the cycles. The mouse that’s gnawing away the bark of my currant bush becomes dinner for the coyote which allows the currant bush to live producing a crop of currants which becomes the harvest of the farm and the healthy berries on your table. To live the agrarian life is to live with and be acutely aware of nature’s cycles. And even when, at 2am, my sleep is broken by the cold, soulless howl of predators nearby, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Cheers from the farm,

Greg

Greg

Notes from The Currant Farm: A Farm Visit and Other Miracles

Mornings on the farm begin mostly in the dark for me this time of year. The exceptions are on clear nights when the moon is still above the horizon and its luminance scatters an otherworldly light around trees and over clearings. The result is a strange world of shadows and stillness. It was such a morning about a week ago as the light from waning gibbous moon reflected off of a skim of winter’s first ice on the pond behind the farmhouse. My habit upon rising is to gaze out the bedroom window over the pond and surrounding fields and trees. After all these years, I’m still startled at the beauty of this farm.

My attention was immediately drawn to the only movement in this frozen scene. I focused on the end of the pond where water, gently flowing over the damn, resists freezing. There, in the small unfrozen patch, were the concentric ripples of something that had just surfaced or dove under. I strained to see other movement in the moonlight for several minutes but there was none. I scanned the edges of the pond for signs of a duck, which is usually the only active visitor this time of year. The fish are quiet and the muskrats, turtles and frogs are tucked away in deep slumber. Nothing. Then at the other end of the pond where the creek flows in, the surface of the still, open water was punctured. The moon lit the rounded hump of an animal’s back as it surfaced and dove again with the smooth graceful movement of an aquatic dancer. I instantly knew what I had seen. I had seen it only twice before in the last decade; a North American river otter. The other two (or one that visited twice) were over 4 feet long which would suggest adult males because females are about a foot shorter.  The pattern of otters in the pond, this time of year, is to swim the 150 feet beneath the ice from opening to opening, so I again focused on the water at the other end of the pond near the damn and sure enough, the otter effortlessly glided up from the water and onto the little damn with a sunfish in its mouth. The light was just enough to see the shape of the weasel like visitor, a glint of wet fur and the flopping breakfast. This was a young otter or perhaps a very small female.

There are 13 species of otter in the world and this was a real treat as the North American river otter is on the sensitive species list to which they were upgraded from the endangered list at one time. They can be found throughout North America from Alaska to Florida and most parts of the U.S. except the Southwest but their numbers dramatically declined from the ‘50s to the ‘80s because of loss of habitat and the fact that they are at the top trophic (feeding) consumer of the food chain. This position means they are exposed to elevated levels of environmental contaminants such as PCBs, DDT and other persistent pollutants as well as heavy metals including cadmium and mercury and lead. This “end of the line” position is called bio-magnification. As contaminants accumulate in the organic materials in the sediments of waterways, they become ingested by aquatic invertebrates such as snails, mussels, and insects. These are then consumed by fish, which may then be eaten by larger fish, all of which are consumed by river otter. Many of the chlorinated hydrocarbons (PCBs, DDT, Chlordane, etc.) have been taken out of use and much of their remnants are gradually covered by less contaminated sediment which is then less available to the population of invertebrates down near the beginning of the food chain.  
The river otter in the pond was thinking about none of this as she munched on the sunfish. All animals have a level of satisfaction when eating and I’m sure some achieve real enjoyment. I know my Lab does when I splash some chicken drippings on her food. This otter was enjoying her meal.

The otter is one of the few wild animals that seem to truly enjoy most of their life and in fact I would even go so far as to say they have fun. They don’t spend much time worrying about building nests or dens, they just find an unoccupied beaver lodge, muskrat burrow or some other readymade dwelling and move in. They don’t spend much time hunting for food either. They travel waterways from pond to pond or the banks of rivers where there is always an abundance of fish, snails, crawfish, and even the occasional bird’s egg or wild blueberry bush. They do, however, spend a lot of time in what might be called frolic. I’ve watched them bounding in their loping gate up the little slope on the side of the pond in the snow, turn around and launch themselves in a belly flop, head first, sliding down the snow bank with their front paws tucked by their sides out onto the ice, sometimes somersaulting at the end of the journey with, what I’m pretty sure can be called, “glee.” They then run back up the hill and do it all over again and again.

This member of the weasel family was once common throughout all of New York State. They virtually disappeared in central and western New York as well as many other parts of the country over the last century but in the late ‘90s, the New York River Otter Project aimed to restore the river otter to the watersheds of western New York. Volunteers and DEC staff live-trapped otters in the Adirondacks, the Catskills and the Hudson Valley. From 1995 through 2000, 279 river otter were captured in eastern New York and released at 16 different sites across the western part of the State. Other States, such as Pennsylvania, have similar programs. To date, it appears the efforts are working as otter families have been spotted in areas that haven’t seen them for a hundred years.

That’s good news and at a time when the world seems precarious at best and on the verge of calamity at the worst we can all use some good news. I’m not sure what miracles really are but this seems like the perfect time of year to ponder that. I think everyone gets to decide what a miracle is for them. It might be something as simple as a playful little animal whose visit reminds me I’m not taking enough time out to just have fun. It might be as breathtaking as the silhouettes  of a V of migrating geese that just happen to pass the full moon on a winter’s night at the very moment I look up at it. It could well be when all the vagaries of wind, moisture, temperature, pressure and gravity conspire to create that one, unique, crystal snowflake.  It might be the friend that unexpectedly shows up when you need them most….or the simple birth of a perfectly innocent child who, at that moment, possesses infinite promise. On the farm, I’m awash in science and miracles and I find no conflict between the two.
I send you all the warmth of good wishes for this season of miracles,
Greg

Notes from the Farm – Thanksgiving and Owls

Like many, Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. In my case, it probably has a lot to do with being so close to the land and having a holiday that coincides with the end of the growing season here on the farm. As I reflect on the season past, I always enjoy the inevitable celebration (good years and bad) and am always thankful for whatever bounty the perennial collaboration of the farm and I yield.

Of course the feast, the family, the friends and the fête are all wonderful but my favorite moments are at the end of the day when the farm is quiet and I take my annual Thanksgiving walk outside just to be still for a while. Thanksgiving night this year was clear and cold. I crossed the lane and walked into the field opposite the farm house and looked up into the frozen crystal universe. I found myself an audience of one for billions of stars performing their tremulous dance of billions of years. Beholding the night sky on a crisp, clear, winter’s night in the country, far away from any light pollution, is one of only a few

Great Horned Female Owl

ways to really see the night sky. I’ve experienced this miracle thousands of times and this time like all the others was as if it were the first. The beginnings and ends of seasons are not dictated by the Julian calendar for me. In my calendar, the night of Thanksgiving is the sweet end of autumn and the beginning of the quiet season that is winter. Standing alone in the field, I embraced the cold and it embraced me. For a while the only movement was the mute twinkling of the stars.  After several moments of peaceful solitude, the silence was perforated by the plaintive hoots of a great horned owl from the woods at the top of the field. It was her evening announcement, “This is where I’ll be hunting for my thanksgiving feast tonight. Friends and relatives not invited.”

There are two distinct species of owls in the world, the barn owl which is comprised of about 20 sub species and true owls, which is a group of about 190 subs. Eight different owls can be found here on the farm at one time or another including the endangered Short-eared owl (Asio flammeus).  The great horned owl with their prominent ear tufts (which have nothing to do with hearing) is sometimes called the “hoot owl” and is a year round resident here on the farm. Not all owls hoot. Hisses, screeches and beeps are just a few of the calls that different owls make and many have different vocalizations for different communications such as territory, food breeding, etc. They’re generally solitary birds but on the rare occasion that there are a group of owls, you wordsmiths would call the group a parliament or a stare. They are also generally quiet birds. Their calls are usually only to announce their presence in a hunting or breeding area to others.

Many birds of prey rely heavily on their sight to locate prey. Like primates, owls have binocular vision, enabling them to pinpoint prey in a 3D field of vision, but unlike primates they can’t move their eyes. They move their heads instead and many owls can twist their heads more than 270 degrees. They have extraordinary hearing. This incredible hearing is the result of their unusual ear placement. While the ears of most animals are symmetrically positioned on the head, the ears of most owls are asymmetrical. One ear is actually lower that the other. Faint sounds, such as a mouse scurrying underneath the leaves on the forest floor, reaches each of the ears differently and the owl is able to pin point the location of the sound by triangulation and the owl can accurately detect the mouse from 60 feet away.

The owl's facial discs

A similar thing happens when a dog cocks his head to one side or the other trying to locate and understand the source or the subtle nuances in a word or sound which he has to do because his ears are symmetrical. The large ring of feathers around owls’ eyes, called facial discs, also aid in hearing by actually directing the sound in from of an owl to its ear canals not unlike satellite dishes.

Another attribute which make owls excellent hunters are soft downy serrations on the wing tips which reduce turbulence and completely muffle the sound of their wing beats, allowing them to swoop down on prey in absolute silence. I remember one autumn afternoon many years ago as I was strolling through a patch of woods, an enormous great horned owl with a wing span of about 5 feet flew past me from behind and quite close to my right side. I didn’t hear a thing and only became aware of his presence when he approached my peripheral vision only a few feet away from my head. I’m pretty sure I lost 2 or 3 years off my life at that moment.

Throughout history, and in many cultures around the world, owls have garnered a bad reputation often associated with death, curses, evil and many other foreboding associations. They have also been attributed with great wisdom and intelligence and are often the constant companion of wizards. In J.K. Rowling’s enchanted world, owls bridge the gap between the magical and muggle worlds, carrying messages, packages, and even Nimbus 2000s. They make it clear to muggles that when a message needs to get through, it WILL get through.

More pragmatically, farmers love having owls around. It’s not uncommon for many to erect tall owl boxes to attract these wonderful flying mouse traps. A single barn owl can consume 800 rodents a year. Many owls, including the great horned mate for life. However they spend very little time together except during breeding season when they return to their partner. A pair of mated great horned  owls don’t travel very far away from each other, though, and will often have adjacent hunting territories. Great horned owls can live up to 13 years in the wild.

As we move past Thanksgiving and the holiday season kicks into high gear may I suggest one of the most unique gifts this season is the gift of currants. As you all know by now we are the folks that put currants on the map in the U.S. and we are the number one source for healthy, delicious currants. We have many wonderful gift ideas and to choose from and yours will be the one gift they will all remember and love. And if you’ve been invited to dinner, why not bring something truly unique like our CurrantC™ All Natural Black Currant syrup for all the festive dishes or our delicious decadent Dark Chocolate Black Currant Bars. And nothing brings out the creativity with holiday cocktails like a 6 pack of CurrantC™ All Natural Black Currant Nectar. Whichever you choose, you’ll be the only one giving the “Wealth of Health” with CurrantC™ Black Currants.

Cheers from the farm,

Greg

Chopin and Currants

I’ve just returned from Poland where I’m securing new varieties of currants for the U.S. market. Poland is the largest grower of currants in the world. As I drove around the countryside one couldn’t help but notice, anyone with 100 square meters of back yard had some currant bushes. Currants in Poland are like apples or tomatoes here in the U.S. There’s an Institute outside of Warsaw that is one of the two largest breeders of new varieties of currants in the world. I have been visiting this Institute for the last 6 years and the plant breeders and scientists there are among the finest in the world. I am happy to count them among my friends. Their new varieties of currants are more disease resistant, more flavorful and better producers and one day, in the next year or so, I expect to be able to offer them to the U.S. market. Because of the ban on currants over the last hundred years, we just don’t have many great varieties here in this country but soon, I hope to change all that. Stay tuned.

I spent several days wandering farms and experimental fields studying hundreds of different cultivars looking at growth habits and checking for desirable traits, tasting the different fruits from these varieties and then back to their laboratories viewing in vitro cellular propagation of new baby currant plants, DNA fingerprinting, and a whole host of other very sophisticated botanical magic. After the third day, the head of the Institute Dr. Edward Żurawicz, told me we were taking the afternoon off. He said he had a surprise for me.

We drove to the tiny village of Żelazowa Wola which lies on the Utrata River, about 30 miles west of Warsaw. I had no idea what was in store. We parked in a small lot and strolled up a narrow shaded path which wound through some well-kept trees. I began to hear piano music wafting through the woods from up ahead. The trees opened to reveal a reflecting pool behind which was simple white stucco house with wooden shingles, the source of the incredibly beautiful cords that were seducing us.  

My friend led me around to the side of the house where there were several benches randomly placed throughout a modest garden of hosta, ferns and a few globe flowers which survived the summer. As we sat on one of the benches facing the open French doors to the parlor of the house, Edward explained to me that this was where Fryderyk Chopin was born and we were listening to a sampling of his works played on one of his actual pianos.

The piece that brought us down the path and now engulfed the whole area was his Barcarolle. Some experts claim that it is the best work ever written for piano. I can’t speak to that but I can report that sitting there on that bench but a few yards from the place he was born, I closed my eyes, felt the warmth of the September sun on my face through just a kiss of a breeze and was bathed in the lyrical, romantic strains of this metaphysical creation emanating from his very own piano. The afternoon flew and we felt joy, exhilaration, sadness, melancholy, power, peace and a palette of other emotions that Chopin’s music elicits. The last piece performed was his Ballade No.4 perhaps the perfect music to enjoy while sitting in his garden or any garden for that matter. It’s been said that it’s the Mona Lisa of Romantic music. The genius of this piece is that you can make it your own experience. It will reflect whatever your frame of mind is. You get to write the story.  There are moments in our lives which get packed away in precious boxes in our memories. The sounds and sights and feels and smells of that place and time are there to be called upon at will and make us smile. This was one of those moments. There are many things I like about Poland and that afternoon was a crowning jewel in my collection.

Chopin is one of Poland’s favorite sons and his birthplace is now a museum boasting 2 of his pianos. If you haven’t really experienced Chopin’s music, I invite you to go for a ride. There are over 230 works that we know of so there’s lots to have fun with. You can get a taste right on your computer watching some of the great pianists perform his works on You Tube. A really good set of speakers and a garden will serve you even better. It’s truly some of the most beautiful music ever written.

One could say farming is neither a full opera nor a protracted symphony. It’s a series of poems, triumphant poems, sad poems, poignant poems,  poems of life and death and rebirth, poems of loss and poems of love. Chopin never wrote lengthy symphonies or tragic operas. He wrote and performed musical poetry. Maybe that’s why his music speaks to me. Of course, sometimes, farming is just downright rock and roll!

As the first chills of autumn settle in, I, and probably many of you, begin to think about warm kitchens and comfort food. Check out the dozens of wonderful recipes made with our delicious farm fresh black currant products on our website. Healthy hot teas made with CurrantC Nectar or CurrantC Concentrate, great deserts made from out fresh frozen and dried currants, delicious sauces to bring out the flavor of game, duck, pork and chicken and a whole list of black currant cocktail recipes to steal the show at any party. Happy Autumn!

Cheers from the farm,

Greg

Notes From The Currant Farm – There’s Fungus Among Us!

The Northeast has been experiencing some of the rainiest weather in history. While we had an unusual amount of water in the basement of the farm, we fared better than many other folks in the area. The generator worked well, the sump pumps did what they could and this 200 year old farm has withstood the wrath of nature once again. I wish everyone could make that claim. The back to back visits of Irene and Lee left 25 inches of rain in two weeks. At one point, I considered replacing the currants with rice. As I watched our little stream behind the farm house become a raging river, I fantasized about an aqueduct from the Northeast to Texas.

The thin silver lining that nature has provided along with all that rain was a bumper crop of wild mushrooms. One of my favorite things to do here on the farm is to forage for wild edibles and mushrooms always top the list. North America boasts over 3,000 varieties of mushrooms which are less that 1/3 of what have been discovered in the rest of the world so far. Some can be found during long periods throughout the season and others might appear for just one week a year. Now, of course, as we all know, many mushrooms are poisonous. Some can cause mild to severe gastric problems and others can lead to blindness liver damage and even death so the word of caution is do your homework, go out with an expert in the beginning and when in doubt leave it out. Also remember that tens of thousands of people safely collect mushrooms every year around the world so you can too. Perhaps the most important thing to learn after you’ve identified what you think is an edible mushroom is what are the inedible ones that look similar. The trick is, while there are dozens and sometimes hundreds of different mushrooms in the woods and fields at any given time during the season, there’s only a handful that are wonderful eating so study those few first, get comfortable learning to ID them and noticing where they’re growing in relationship to surrounding trees and learn how best to prepare them. Do this and you will have gained a knowledge that will enrich your time in the woods and fields, elevate your gastronomy to new levels and can be passed on to family and friends.

While finding edible mushrooms is a great joy, just going out with one of the many field guides in your back pocket and learning to identify just some of the hundreds of mushrooms that populate the woods is equally fun. The other worldly shapes and colors will amaze you once you begin to be mindful and see them even if you fall into the “not easily amazed” category.

The mushrooms you find popping up from the forest floor and in fields are actually the fruiting body of the fungus which is subterranean. Mushrooms are the rough equivalent of fruit on a plant. They produce spores instead of seeds but serve a similar function in that they help to spread the species.

OK, so while I and many others love mushrooms, I’m aware that many don’t. For those, the word fungus is just some disgusting, slimy thing that the world would be better without.  So bear with me for a moment while I talk about the other side of mushrooms.

I’m not overstating the case by saying that the health of all forests in the world is directly related to the population and variety of certain fungus. Mycorrhizal fungus, which makes up a huge class the fungus family perform a wonderful symbiotic relationship with all manner of plants from grasses to trees. They send their hyphae or filaments out 20 times further that the roots grow and mine natural phosphorus and other trace minerals and goodies and inject these needed nutrients directly into the roots of the plants making for healthier and more disease resistant ecosystem. The mycelial (fungal parts) component of topsoil within a typical Douglas fir forest in the Pacific Northwest approaches 10% of the total biomass and that doesn’t even count the mass of the endomycorrhizae and the many yeast-like fungi that thrive in the topsoil.

OK, big deal, you say. Well, they really are a big deal. A single colony of a Honey mushroom, Armillaria gallica, one of the best known edibles, has been found in Michigan covering 37 acres, weighing over 220,000 pounds, with an estimated age of 1,500 years. Not big enough for you? Scientists in Washington State have reported a colony of Armillaria ostoyae covering 2,200 acres and is at least 2,400 years old. With the exception of the trembling Aspen forests of Colorado, which are a group of interconnected trees, this fungus is the largest known living organism on the planet.

But you’re still not going to put mushrooms in your omelet? Well, you may not have to get the benefits. There is a relatively new species of fungus called Taxomyces andreanae which produces minute quantities of the potent anti-carcinogen Taxol, a proven treatment for breast cancer (Stone, 1993). This new fungus has been studied and now a synthetic form of this potent drug is available for cancer patients. Another form, a leaf fungus found in the Congo, duplicates the effect of insulin, but…are you ready?  It is orally active! And the multibillion dollar drug, cyclosporine, a drug that is used to suppress the immune system following transplant surgery to help prevent rejection in patients was originally extracted from the fungus Beauveria nivea. Of the estimated 1,500,000 species of fungi, only approximately 70,000 have been identified (Hawksworth et al. 1995), 10,000 of which are mushrooms. We are just beginning to discover the importance of this barely explored genome.

Chanterelles on Walnut Farm

So right after Hurricane Irene doused us with 12 inches of rain, I struggled with the choice between bailing out the basement or hunting for mushrooms. Since I didn’t ultimately want mushrooms growing in the basement, my step son Gabe and I tended to that chore first and as soon as it was more or less under control, I headed for the woods. Chanterelles (Craterellus) are not uncommon around here and I almost always manage to find a fair share of the yellows. Delicious! The black Chanterelles are also around most years but in much smaller quantities. If I find a couple handfuls a year on the farm, I’m happy but something about Irene’s wet kiss caused these elusive treasures to explode. The French call them La Trompette des morts because of their trumpet like shape and foreboding blackish color but these trumpets had nothing to do with death. They were alive and all over the oak forest. I found close to 5 pounds along with a few yellow and I celebrated by inviting some friends over, sautéed veal scallops with black chanterelles and garlic, gnudi, green beans from the garden and a couple bottles of wonderful old Chianti Classico. Oh, and we crowned the meal with some fabulous homemade Black Currant sorbetto  (from you know where) served on grilled white peaches.  Now that’s my idea of a fungus feast!

News Flash! So many of you have been asking when our delicious, healthy genuine dried Black Currants will be back in stock. The wait is over! Order today at CurrantC.

Cheers from the farm,

Greg

Notes from The Currant Farm – Tomatoes

I think the bulk of the heat and humidity of July and August is pretty much behind us here on the Currant farm which means we’re coming to the end of the Dog Days of summer or what the Romans called diēs caniculārēs. The term associated with this oppressively hot period in July and August in the Northern hemisphere was actually used as far back as 330 BC when Aristotle discussed it in his 8 book work called “Φυσικῆς ἀκροάσεως” in the Greek, meaning Lectures on Nature or commonly referredto today as “The Physics.”

Canis Major

This time of heat during the middle of summer was thought to be brought on when thebrightest star in the constellation Canis Major (Large Dog), Sirius, rose at the about same time as the sun thereby increasing the amount of heat from the heavens. Interestingly, while this celestial pairing was true in the days of ancient Greece and Rome, it no longer occurs today due to what’s called “the precession of the equinoxes.” It was believed that this period was an evil time during which seas boiled, wine soured, animals became sluggish, people became irritable and angry, and a whole list of other unpleasantries. I don’t know about the seas boiling and wine going bad but irritable people and sleeping dogs sure rings a bell.

On the other hand there is something great that comes out during this time of year and
that’s tomatoes. Red and yellow (mostly) globes of juicy decadence which say summer to me more than just about any other food. Maybe if Aristotle had some tomatoes in his garden he wouldn’t have been so disparaging about the summer.  The tomato is arguably the most common vegetable (more about that later) in the world. Its use as a food dates back to 500 BC in South America, most likely in the area of Peru. The word tomato comes from the Nahuatl (Azetecan) word tomatl, meaning “the swelling fruit.”  It was then, probably, a small yellow delicacy. When the Spanish started colonizing the Americas they, like most people, fell in love with it and began bringing plants wherever their travels led them. If you saw a Spanish ship in the harbor, you could pretty much be assured of
finding tomatoes. There’s some debate as to whether Cortés was the first to bring them back to Europe after conquering the Aztec city of Tenochtítlan, now Mexico City, in 1521 or Columbus collected them 30 years earlier but the first mention of them in Europe was in a small botanical book written in 1544 by an Italian physician and botanist, Pietro Andrea
Matttioli, who named it pomo d’oro meaning “golden apple”. The Italians still call tomatoes, pomodoro.

Tomato from the Farm

Today, there are well over 7,000 varieties of tomatoes and whether grown in the garden, on the patio, in a greenhouse or hanging upside down, more tomatoes are grown in the U.S. than any other vegetable…ah…fruit. Ok, so botanically, tomatoes are fruit but it’s not an easy discussion.  You see, a fruit is the part of a flowering plant that develops from specific tissues of the flower into the seed bearing ovule or you could say it’s the ovary and seeds of a flowering plant all in a package.  At least that’s what a botanist might tell you. “So what about cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, peas, beans and eggplant?” you, no doubt asked. Well a cook might have a different explanation saying that a fruit is the part of the plant that’s sweet, edible and contains seeds.  Simple enough unless you consider my beloved Currants which aren’t sweet at all and don’t forget cranberries. So let’s approach it from the other side and try to define vegetables. The classic definition is any edible part of a plant other than sweet fruit or seeds. Hmmm. Where does that leave mushrooms, cones, pods, grains, nuts and don’t forget false fruit or pseudocarps.

Well, it may come as no surprise that there are not only botanical and culinary definitions but a legal one as well. Legally, vegetables are defined by (are you ready?) how they’re taxed which brings us full circle to our tomato just hanging on the vine out there in the sunshine, not thinking about Washington DC at all. But Washington thought long and hard about the tomato and the matter went all the way to The Supreme Court

In 1887, U.S. tariff laws imposed a duty on vegetables, but not on fruits. A vegetable, according to these laws was defined as “any commodity that is taxed as vegetables in
a particular jurisdiction”. This law caused the tomato’s status to become a matter of legal importance. The U.S. Supreme Court settled the controversy on May 10, 1893, by declaring that the tomato is a vegetable, based on the popular definition, at the time, that classifies vegetables by use, that they are generally served with dinner and not dessert  (Nix v. Hedden (149 U.S. 304)).  Before you get too upset, you should know that any tax rate related to tomatoes is the same for Warren Buffet as it is for you.

The one thing I can tell you that I know to be true is that there are few pleasures in the world that compare to going out to the garden on a hot summer afternoon when no one else is around, with a salt shaker sticking out of the back pocket or your jeans, plucking the biggest, fattest, juiciest, sun warmed tomato, leaning way over the rich, black, garden soil and…………

So many of you have written me with kind words about Notes From The Currant Farm that I’d like to be so bold as to ask a favor. If you really enjoy them please sign up as many family and friends as you can by clicking here. I had a woman in Ohio last week that brought a “signup sheet” to her organization’s meeting and enticed her whole group to sign up for my “Notes”.  Thanks, Martha!  My currant farm business stays alive because of the number of folks who sign up and eventually order some of our healthy, delicious products so the more people who sign up, the better. Of course, I think you’ll be doing them a favor but if they don’t like the letters as much as you do they only have to hit the “unsubscribe” button at the bottom and we go away.

Cheers from the farm,

Greg