After hearing about the Chinese Hawthorn (Crataegus pinnatifida), Kate really
wanted to try some out, so today her, Katrina and I went to pick some on
McClure Street. I hadn’t realized how many are planted along that street: for a block on either side of
Cook Street and on both sides of the road are large Chinese Hawthorns. There have been several frosts this fall and
a fairly hard frost last night, which has softened the fruit and makes picking
them much easier than last time. Katrina
and I picked about a gallon in a half hour.
A ladder would make the picking much faster because the trees are tall and the branches don’t bend down enough to easily pick while standing on the ground.
Afterwards, we biked down to Superior Street to check on the
English Oak (Quercus robur) acorns. Once again we spent most of our time
collecting from the same sprawling oak.
This time the acorns were very brown and loose in their caps; some
have fallen on the ground. I tried
out a new technique for picking acorns that I found really fun. I found a “go fetch” sized stick and hucked
it into the branches to knock the acorns down.
When a laden branch was struck they came raining down like a piñata spilling
candy. We actually thought that there
might be some connection to harvesting Pinyon Pine (piñon) nuts by knocking the
cones to the ground, but evidently the etymology is from the Italian pignata,
which is a fat bellied pot. I also
learned that the tradition of breaking a piñata was brought to Mexico by the Spanish,
who in turn got it from the Chinese. In
any case, I felt like a child filling my pockets with loot as I scampered
around pawing at the ground picking up acorns. I know, the acorn addiction worsens....
From there we biked up to Fernwood to help Kate pick an
Apple tree as part of the Victoria Fruit Tree Project. From a Spartan variety tree on semi-dwarf
rootstock we picked 230 Kg, which was divided up between the land owner,
the pickers, and the food bank. On Saturday
we are going to make some more apple cider from our share.
