harvest

Close-up of sliced fig, crumbled blue cheese (Kapiti Kahurangi) and rocket salad. Image: Su Leslie, 2016

Detail: fig, blue cheese (Kapiti Kahurangi) and rocket salad. Image: Su Leslie, 2016

It may not be true that a watched fig never ripens, but it has certainly seemed that way. I’ve been popping outside (several times a day) to check on the fig tree since we got back from our road-trip.

Close-up image of fig ripening on tree. Image: Su Leslie, 2016

Almost ripe. First fig of the season — yesterday. Image: Su Leslie, 2016

Today I was rewarded with a perfectly ripe, luscious fruit.

Close-up shot of ripe fig on kitchen work-top. Image: Su Leslie, 2016

The first fig. Image: Su Leslie, 2016.

Close-up of halved fig on wooden trencher. Image: Su Leslie, 2016

The first fig. Image: Su Leslie, 2016.

I’ve celebrated the start of our fruit harvest with this fig, blue cheese and rocket salad for lunch. Yum!

Fig, blue cheese (Kapiti Kahurangi) and rocket salad. Image: Su Leslie, 2016

Tomatoes ripening on the vine. How many will be eaten right there? Photo: Su Leslie, 2014. Shot with iPhone 4, edited with Aviary Ultimate Photo Editor.

I’ve been re-reading Michael Pollan’s In Defence of Food, with it’s wonderful mantra:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Right now my garden is making it easy to do this. We planted a bit late this time and haven’t had the bumper crops we enjoyed last season. But as our tomatoes and cucumbers, leaves, peppers and herbs ripen and proliferate, we have a small daily harvest; enough to make tasty fresh salads each night, and enough to share with friends.

To be truthful, the harvest would be a teeny bit bigger if all the tomatoes actually made it back to the kitchen, but who can resist that one perfect, sun-ripened, red taste explosion. Or a cucumber eaten, bite by bite, while sitting in the sun. The last one I picked – the juicy centre was really warm; about blood temperature.

Purple sage, cos lettuce, parsley, oregano, bell peppers and chillies. Nature has made it easy for me to eat well. Photo: Su Leslie, 2014. Shot with iPhone 4, edited with Aviary Ultimate Photo Editor.

Nature has been kind to me, and to my garden. We have been spared the terrible storm that flooded parts of Christchurch this week, battering a city devastated by earthquakes three years ago and struggling to recover.

When I go to pick lunch later, I’ll do so knowing that I’ve been fortunate, and that it won’t always be so.

The thing about eating food – rather than Pollan’s “food-like substances”- is that the connections between earth and plate are clearer, the distances shorter. I eat with an awareness that nature gives, and nature takes away and I will live best if I live within the rhythm of the world, rather than trying to master or change it.

This post was written for Sally’s Phoneography Challenge at Lens and Pens by Sally. You can find out more here. And these are some other responses to the challenge that I’ve enjoyed:

http://sustainabilitea.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/phoneography-challenge-nature-around-two-lakes/

http://angelinem.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/phoneography-challenge-the-nature-of-small-things/

http://nwframeofmind.com/2014/03/03/iphone-monday-3-3-14/

http://livingwithmyancestors.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/phoneography-challenge-nature-3/

http://pictograf.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/phoneography-challenge-nature/

http://19planets.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/a-natural-palette-001-march-2014-haigahaibun-for-the-phoneography-challenge-nature/

http://completelydisappear.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/colours-on-the-ground/

http://streetsofsfphotos.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/mockingbird-in-tree/

http://steve-says.net/2014/03/03/attack-of-the-giant-spiders/

Phoneography Challenge: Nature

http://piecesofstarlight.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/phoneography-just-before-the-wipers-came-on/

http://architar.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/spring-is-here/