yard

food : all things quince

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Quinces from our backyard.

One of the best surprises we’ve had as we’ve gotten to know our house and yard was the discovery of quince trees in the rear corner of our neighbor’s yard, along the border between our two properties. Because we are the neighbor to the south, and there are other trees to the north in our neighbor’s yard, the trees grow toward the sun, overhanging our rear sidewalk and garage. During the first year we were here, we saw one or two yellow things on the ground by the back fence, and commented to each other that an animal must have dragged an apple or something into the yard and left it there. That was the sum total of the interest we paid in the situation and the energy we expended in addressing it: very little. We were busy with other parts of the yard, and a bit overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work it would take to clean up the property; the last thing we wanted to do was investigate mysterious happenings out by the garage.

The second year we were here, we spent more time in the yard during the autumn clearing the ivy, pruning the trees, and covering the weed-laden garden beds with a thick leaf mulch. During all that time in close proximity to the rear yard, we noticed that the yellow fruits were actually growing on the trees, and were littering our rear sidewalk by early November. This piqued our curiosity, and we consulted one of my partner’s colleagues who grows quite a lot of his own fruits and vegetables on a lovely piece of land that used to be part of a dairy farm. He told us we had quinces, a fruit of which I had only heard vague and mysterious references to before that point. Nonetheless, I gathered them up and set them on the back steps to cure while I figured out what to do with them.


Quince jelly.


Quince paste.

There are, it appears, two things to do with quinces. You can make jelly or you can make membrillo, a thick paste that is a favorite dessert in Spain that’s served with manchego cheese. You can also bake and poach them, mixing them in with apple desserts for additional flavor, which we tried as well. With two dozen enormous yellow fruits having literally dropped from the sky into our yard and folks all over the internet raving about the glory of the flavor of the quince, I decided there was nothing for it but to make jelly…and membrillo, since it would be a shame to have all the pulp just go to waste. This was my first foray into canning, and I had to improvise somewhat. I used a stockpot for the boiling water bath (which, by the way, I don’t recommend) and set to work chopping and boiling and draining and boiling and skimming and stirring and pouring, ending up with about a dozen half-pints of jelly and about 20 pieces of membrillo. Happily, everybody I know seems to love membrillo, a delicacy I had never heard of before embarking on this new culinary path. We were able to give away the membrillo, in addition to serving it to guests at every opportunity, and enjoyed the jelly for much of the year. I also learned that canning is actually not that hard — although quince jelly is arguably the easiest product to start with, containing just the right amount of natural pectin to gel on its own and turning a lovely deep rose color to let you know when it’s done.

Following this roaring success, we made a concerted effort to help the trees this year. We cut back the ivy that surrounds them and pruned all the not-inconsiderable deadwood. Once we knew what to look for, the trees became incredibly easy to identify, and we were pleased to discover two small saplings at the sides of the main grove, no doubt sprung up from fruits left to lie under the thick ivy ground cover. Later in the spring we were rewarded first by flowers and then by little green fruits. Little green fruits which soon littered the ground when the gale-force winds of the early summer storms blew through. This autumn, there was not a single yellow fruit on any of the trees, much to our disappointment. We are hopeful that quinces are like some varieties of pears, with large and small production years, and that next year will be a banner year. In the meantime, I have been combing the internet for a mail-order source of quince fruits, to no avail, having learned the hard way that their floral flavor is truly as addictive as quince fans claimed!


Tarte tatin, with a layer of quince slices — magnifique!

food : all things quince

garden log : cleaning up for winter

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The lavender bush, blooming in autumn.


The lavender bush, newly planted in spring.

This weekend we engaged in a superhuman final push to get the yard cleaned up for the winter. ‘Cleaned up’ is, of course, a relative term. We did not, as I’d hoped, prepare any beds for the transfer of rose bushes in the spring. Nor did we plant anything, move any bulbs, or cut the ivy back off of our neighbor’s trees. We didn’t even mow the lawn one last time before the cold rain of November descended for real (oops).

Even without meeting any of those goals, we accomplished a lot in the yard this year. Much of that work took place in the spring and early summer: digging up the liriope, relocating plants that were being suffocated, planting new azaleas in the front, putting in a new bed in the back, cutting back the ivy, and pruning the quince trees. Nonetheless, we pushed on and were able to find more to do. We dug up (even) more liriope, filling about three contractor bags with the stuff. I cut back the holly trees, to allow us to walk under them and to give the recovering crape myrtle (ours) and magnolia (our neighbor’s) some breathing room. We pulled oodles of dead vines down from the back trees and cut the mulberry back from the garage. I raked all the leaves, and we transferred them via the tarp method to the back beds where the great multi-year weed-smothering process continues. I was extremely glad to see that a decent layer of leaves remained from last year in many places, such that the leaves from our own yard should be sufficient for this year’s efforts. The tarp method, in contrast to last year’s wheelbarrow method, also went quickly and allowed us to move larger piles of leaves at once.

All in all, it was a satisfying clean up and I’m pleased with how our yard is looking. It’s conceivable that what remains to be done — ivy, liriope, and sapling stump removal — can be accomplished in the spring without much effort. Okay, with a lot of effort, but in plenty of time to allow me to actually plant things throughout the summer. Imagine: gardening that involves futzing around moving things here and there rather than mass killing.

garden log : cleaning up for winter

garden log : mating dragonflies

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Dragonflies mating on our porch post.

I went outside this afternoon to enjoy the unseasonably warm day, and after my mole eyes adjusted to the sun, I noticed a pair of dragonflies mating on our porch. These dragonflies have been around the yard for a while now, and I also see them in the town park. Which is great, because it means our stream is both clean and wet enough to support dragonflies (the overgrowth along the edges is apparently also ideal for them to do their hanging thing when they’re young).

Despite having purchased a dragonfly identification book, I have not been able to figure out what kind they are. For example: is that a clubtail? This is the first time I’ve ever tried to identify a dragonfly beyond those really obvious white-winged blobby ones that I see at the pond, and I’m a bit overwhelmed by the choices. So, please feel free to identify them for me! I’m in Maryland, they’re mating in October, and the water habitat nearby is a creek bed that is mostly fed by storm water. Go to town!


Still mating.


More mating.


And still more mating.

garden log : mating dragonflies

garden log : praying mantises

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Praying mantis on the front porch one evening last week.


Praying mantis on the back wall this afternoon.


Praying mantis on the front window this time last year.

I was delighted to catch sight of mantises of two different colors in our yard this year, although probably both of a single species. The brown color and the lateral stripe, plus the fact that they are enormous, indicate that they are likely Chinese mantises. Mantises are excellent predators, and as I’ve noted in the past, our yard can use all the insect predation help it can get. It’s true that they will eat any kind of insect they can catch, so I’m hoping they’ll focus on the crickets and leave the other predators — cicada killers and ladybugs in particular — alone.

Now that I know what their egg sacs look like (thank you, interweb!), I’ll keep an eye out for it on or around the house and not mistake it for a wasp nest, which I think I’ve done in the past. Plants and insects are not my forte, but I’m learning. Now, if we had some toads to eat the hosta’s slugs, those I would know what to do with!

garden log : praying mantises

garden log : insects

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Male Polyphemus Moth in our backyard.

This has been a great summer for sighting large insects in our backyard! I can’t take too much credit, as they’re attracted to food sources already present that I simply leave alone. The cicada killers love our yard, possibly more so than other sandy-soiled backyards in our town because I don’t use pesticides on our lawn which makes the ground a friendly habitat for them to make their burrows. I imagine they can find cicadas pretty much anywhere, but clean ground is more rare out here in the suburbs. We’ve had several swooping around our backyard these past couple of weeks, and little hills of dirt are starting to pop up. Not to be confused with the mole mounds that are also appearing, although I’m now wondering if some of last year’s hills that I attributed to the mole were actually from the wasps. For the first time this year I also spotted dragonflies in our yard, which tells you how bad the mosquitoes have been around here. Not just in our yard: on a recent walk through the town park, I saw at least a dozen dragonflies and damselflies swooping over the grass.

The most exciting find, however, was something totally new. Yesterday, the contractor who’s repairing our rear wall alerted me to the presence of a male Polyphemus Moth outside on his scaffolding. While I’ve heard all about these giant moths that don’t eat and die shortly after breeding — the Luna Moth being the most celebrated — I’d never seen one before. I can see why people get so excited about them: they are so cool! Besides being as big as my hand, the predator wing-snap reflex is something else. One small twitch of a neighboring leaf as I tried to get a better photo, and BANG out come the wings with the little cat eyes staring right at me.

This is the second insect I’ve seen this year that prefers sassafras for food. We have a small sassafras tree on the south side of our house, and two saplings springing up next to it. Sadly, the sassafras is in the area that might have to go the way of a dead tree if we decide to do exterior waterproofing work around our house. For now, though, it’s apparently providing habitat for not just an enormous moth but the Spicebush Swallowtail, several of which I’ve seen in our yard this year. The moth apparently also enjoys quince leaves, so it’s possible it was hanging out in the small grove of those this summer.

Besides these exciting newcomers, we have a gazillion crickets in the lawn, which means I am constantly startling little flocks of sparrows up out of the grass when I go outside. The odd Jiminy-type cricket makes its way into the basement — by which I mean LARGE — and when that happens we rescue it from the risk of the glue-traps (set out for the completely squicky camel crickets to meet their slow dooms) and toss it back into the lawn for the birds. Speaking of birds, having sprayed for the Eastern Tent Caterpillars this year, the cherry trees were healthy enough to actually set fruit, and we have loads of birds munching away in the heights. All of which assures me that I am providing plentiful food sources even with the discontinuation of my bird feeders following our various rat and cat problems.

garden log : insects