While visiting friends in New York, I've been taking quite a few late-February walks around the neighborhood with the little dog. We are good wandering companions, as she stops every so often to sniff, and I stop every so often to gaze at greens and trees. We understand each other.
As soon as the sun begins to get brighter, it always feels good to get moving outside, even if it's still cold, though this week has been unseasonably warm. Today, there were signs of life as the birds sang and the squirrels chattered, and a few hardy plants showed their leaves.
Here's a shot with sycamore pods, wild onions, and the smallest garlic mustards just coming up. The greens already taste like garlic (yum!), though there weren't enough to harvest, and this wasn't a safe place to do so anyway. Garlic mustard is a particularly wonderful early green, if you can find it. In many parts of the Northeast, it grows rampant through the edges of the woods, growing tall and flowering white later in the season. The young leaves are best cooked like spinach before the plants flower, and there's no need to season them, as they carry their own garlic flavor.
The downside of this plant being considered a noxious weed is that people have a tendency to spray herbicide on the plants to fight the spread, so we must always be careful where we harvest. Also, although they smell wonderful, eat only a small amount at first, as any new food could cause adverse reactions. Upon my first harvest of garlic mustard, I ate an entire bowl of the steamed leaves and felt rather ill afterwards. I still pick them as a trail nibble and try to appreciate the use of an otherwise notorious "weed."
After a slow trip through an overgrown lane, we came upon these two gorgeous trees. I'm pretty sure they are shagbark hickories, as I found thick nut husks underneath and the bark is very shaggy. A hearty "thank you" to whatever soul planted these beauties so long ago for us to now enjoy. Someone once said "the best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago." That goes double for nut trees. If you want to make a difference for decades to come, plant a nut tree yesterday.
Happy wandering!
