It is my safe haven. A place of calm, escape and acceptance.

The Kieffer pear tree at the end of my street offers unconditional friendship, year after year, sharing its bounty with me, welcoming me into its midst with open branches. When I climb up a ladder to get lost in them and the fruit they're bearing, I feel like a child pressing herself into a warm, loving hug from her favourite aunt.

I must sound nutty anthropomorphising a tree but when it comes time to pick the pears on this tree with a shape like a chubby grandmother and about the same age, too, I feel like I'm reunited with an old, loyal friend.

I talk to it. Say hello and tell it that it's crop is looking a little thinner again this year. The frost-ridden spring must have been tough on its old, arthritic limbs that look so stiff and yet seem to bend so easily, when I'm among them, allowing me reach some of the best fruit safely.

In need of peace and solitude, I picked my favourite tree in the city nearly clean this week. I didn't put the call out for helpers like I usually do. I just needed it to be me and the tree. To clear my head after a day of constant chaos at the office. To do the most simple rather than cerebral of tasks. To just get lost in its leafy crown and have the hectic demands of the hours before our get-together drowned out by the soft beat of pears landing in a wooden basket. Or the deeper thud of some of the biggest but unreachable fruit dropping to ground, pushed by a passing breeze, keeping time like a bass drum for the cacophony of my rattling ladder making its way around a solid trunk.

 For the past three falls, this tree and its owner have shared the pear harvest, donated to canning projects in turn donated to local food banks. I would probably cry if it ever got cut down and no other tree in my usual and growing harvest rounds would ever be able to fully fill the void.

It's ironic, too, given that it's not just a pear tree, but a Kieffer pear tree at that, loaded with hard, green, gritty fruit that so many people let fall to the ground to become fertilizer for their lawn, a haven for wasps and a sign of a society with too much.

It doesn't have the allure of a fuzzy, sun-warmed peach with its funny bell figure, speckled skin and cool-weather harvests. It lacks the popularity of that quintessential fall fruit that cans stave off white coats, the apple.

It doesn't even have the cachet of its cousins, the bosc, bartlett or sugar pear.

It is a fruit that was meant to be canned, a storage pear. A heritage variety that remains steadfast in the face of disease, harsh weather and being shunned by fans of the household names of fruit.

Even I have wrinkled my nose at the mighty Kieffer, a reflex reaction from having tried to sink my teeth into them before it was time.

Today, while trying to lose myself in another tree, I found a flawless Kieffer laying on the ground, waiting to be rescued. It's skin had turned from pale green to butter yellow, its flesh still crisp but not jaw-aching hard. The sandy texture had mellowed but the flavour had been amped up.

It was sweet with a lemony kick, light, but unmistakably pear. It wasn't delicious, but it was good. Solidly good.

Which had me wondering, with so many around, with all the boulevard trees in St. Catharines, it could be this city's official street food. Why aren't more people eating was once one of the backbones of our local canning industry?

Consider this my effort to resurrect the once mighty Kieffer not only to the king of canned fruit but even worthy of being eaten out of hand. We harvested 500 pounds this weekend that culinary students will once again can for local food banks.

But before they do, I'm going to make sure they try eating one first with the hope of recruiting more to the Kieffer fan club. It's the least I can do for trees that have given so much, so unconditionally.

Posted by thegardenofeating-niagara at 1:19 PM EDT

Updated: Monday, 8 October 2012 1:21 PM EDT

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Its branches drooped, dragged down by the weight of plentiful clusters of diminutive fruit that looked like unripened cherries.

With their smooth, yellow-green complexions and red cheeks, they blushed like polite, proper souls that had just been told on off-colour joke.

But below that sweet exterior, tonight's Garden of Eating - Niagara harvest packed a cheek-clenching, mouth-puckering, face-contorting punch that only crabapples do.

It was our first crabapple harvest and so one met with excitement, curiosity and, as always, gratitude.

The tree, a Japanese crabapple, was offered up by a former co-worker of mine, who had previously donated the haul of this very giving, very prolific tree, to the neighbourhood birds. Not that she had much choice by the sounds of it. The fruit would ripen and they would come, plucking the marble-sized (I'm talking crocks!) orbs and undoubtedly enjoying themselves immensely.

They'll still have a few. The uppermost branches - always with the ripest, most perfect fruit - are out of reach for me, but no challenge for the winged crew, I'm sure.

This harvest will go to Start Me Up Niagara - we got a bushel tonight, with at least another one still waiting for us on those branches - which will turn them into chutney and roast the rest with cinnamon to be enjoyed by the people their kitchen feeds.

The next batch will go to this year's crop of culinary students with the Niagara Catholic District School Board, those good (poor?) souls who signed up to can the hundreds of pounds of Kieffer pears for the Garden of Eating again this year. I'll be curious to see what they make.

Perhaps pickled crabapples? A quick search and the Google gods show that this fruit, usually left to rot or become bird feed, is actually pretty versatile. It's a wonder it doesn't have more cheerleaders or, at least, more vocal ones.

I'll be keeping a few of these beauties, too. I think jelly is in order. I love crabapple jelly, even though it will probably take me an entire sugar plantation to make a batch.

To make the fruit taste as sweet as it looks.

Still, much better than going to the birds.

Posted by thegardenofeating-niagara at 10:13 PM EDT

Updated: Monday, 10 September 2012 10:14 PM EDT

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Pear puns never get old for me.

My apologies, though, to those for whom they do because there will likely be more in the coming weeks. The Garden of Eating - Niagara is full pear harvest mode, with our pick yesterday resulting in 263 lbs of big bosc beauties that will be divided between Project Share in Niagara Falls and the Ozanam Centre in St. Catharines.

And there are at least three more bosc harvests planned before we take on the cornerstone of Garden of Eating operations, the mighty Kieffer.

Thanks to those who have helped pick so far this season and here's to more willing volunteers in the weeks to come - volunteers like Erin Wilson, who had this to say about lending a hand with harvest:

Yesterday I found myself along side a rural road in the middle of Niagara's fruit belt. The sun was hot, the breeze was cooling, and the sky was the kind of blue you dream about all winter. I spent part of that afternoon filling bushel baskets with beautiful bosc pears, destined for a local organization that feeds our hungry neighbours. It was, in short, a perfect afternoon.

I've had the chance to join the Garden of Eating Niagara on a couple of picks. In fact, I've been eager for the "volunteer season" to start this year! The issue of food justice is important to me, and I love that GOEN gets neglected, healthy food into the hands of people who need it. I've met interesting, kind, community-minded people on picks. I've enjoyed the outdoors during my favourite time of year. And there is an undeniable satisfaction that comes with knowing I had a role in saving beautiful food from being wasted.

Every pick ends with hearty thanks. It's a bit ironic, as I'm so thankful to take part.

And I'm so thankful for the help because the harvests couldn't be done without it, Erin.

If you're free Friday night and want to help harvest bosc pears in Niagara-on-the-Lake, drop me a line. Volunteers get a share of the harvest - and my gratitude - as a token of thanks.

Posted by thegardenofeating-niagara at 9:53 PM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 4 September 2012 9:56 PM EDT

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 I feel like I won in the lottery this week.

The Garden of Eating - Niagara's pear harvest has begun and while I approach the mass picking of the bell-shaped fruit with glee - hundreds upon hundreds of pounds of them go to local soup kitchens and food banks - my delight is even greater this year.

Why? Because we've gotten donations of super sweet sugar pears and some beautiful
Boscs. No offence to the workhorse Kieffer pears that come our way. We always appreciate them for their ability to be stored for extended periods of time and those qualities that make them perfect for cooking and canning, rather than eating fresh from the tree.

But with sugar pears and Boscs, we have fruit that recipients can sink their teeth into immediately. (Sorry Kieffer pear fans, you are a special kind, but we've found these apples of your eyes really are best cooked instead).

Our first pear harvest happened Monday with a 100-pound haul of sugar pears in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Last fall, I drove by the stand of trees and saw the fruit rotting on the ground. After making a mental note, I stuck a sticky note into the mailbox of the property owner last week, after noticing a few fallen pears again, asking if the Garden of Eating - Niagara could harvest them.

He said yes, we broke out the ladders and bushel baskets and some of the best pears I've ever tasted headed to the Ozanam Centre, a soup kitchen on Queenston Street in St. Catharines that feeds 70 and 100 people every day for lunch.

I had never had a sugar pear before pulling up to this stand of trees last week. Also known as the Seckel pear, these nearly round fruits have a light green skin that turns yellow as the fruit morphs from its crisp, off-the-tree texture to buttery, slurpy bliss. It's perfectly sweet and really, the kind of pear that I think could make this unsung hero of fruit the star it deserves to be.

I'm not sure why we harvest more pears than anything else. I just don't think pears get their props. Still, I know they're appreciated wherever we take them, which are often places suffering from a dearth of fresh food donations.

Good news is, there are lots more fresh eating pears ripening for the picking as I type. We have about 10 Bosc trees that have been donated, followed, of course, by our tried and true Kieffers, which we plan to can again and donate to Community Care of St. Catharines and Thorold.

Fingers are crossed for a crab apple harvest in the days ahead. Those cheek-puckering babies will be destined for jelly to be donated. And I'm hopeful we'll have some quince in our future.

Our bushel baskets begin to runneth over.

Got a tree to donate? Visit The Garden of Eating - Niagara and let us know.

Posted by thegardenofeating-niagara at 8:41 PM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 4 September 2012 10:03 PM EDT

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My hands look like a child's.

Stained purple from the bounty of mulberries that come with this time of year. Like I played with my food or gorged messily on the juicy purple berries that so easily make their mark on anyone who comes in contact with them.

It's a sure sign of June, a sure sign that another season of harvesting fruit has begun for The Garden of Eating - Niagara.

I must admit - and with a bit of guilt - I've had the easy job so far, not that harvesting mulberries is ever hard work. Lay down a tarp and let the tree rain down its harvest upon it. If need be, gently jostle the branches with a rake and get a monsoon of mulberries. Funnel the delicate royal purple fruit into a container and you're set.

But I haven't even had to do that. Normally, I love getting lost in my thoughts as I rifle through the dumping of mulberries. It's a job I usually do myself, saving all the volunteer credit the Garden of Eating racks up for harvesting pears in the fall. This time, though, the homeowners have scooped up the berries for me and as luck would have it, have brought them to work to give to me there. Easiest harvests ever.

That's where the guilt comes in but also the gratitude. I have a nasty bug kicking my butt - nothing is worse than being sick in the summer - and if it weren't for their kindness, there would be no Garden of Eating - Niagara mulberry harvest at all. They answered my call when I found out the usually reliable tree that had been harvested for the past three years had been hacked and they've helped out when I've been down for the count. The world needs more people like them, really.

So why the purple stained hands? The first haul of berries netted about five pounds of fruit; fruit that I have cleaned and frozen so the entire harvest can be delivered in one shot to Community House in Welland. That's where assistant director Carly Bowden said they will be used in cooking classes with children in one of the Rose City's poorest neighbourhoods. They can come to learn a new recipe and enjoy breakfast together.

My freezer is a paradise for mulberry fans right now, a bastion of future healthy meals for children who need them, and my dreams of being a hand model are dashed once again.

Nothing could make me happier.

Posted by thegardenofeating-niagara at 8:54 PM EDT

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It's usually about this time of year that I start planning which pair of shoes I will sacrifice for the start of the Garden of Eating - Niagara harvesting season. 

 That's because in a few short weeks, we should start harvesting mulberries. For the last three years, we've been offered a stately, generous tree on Geneva Street that drops the dark purple berries like a cloud drops rain. Each time, our visits have marked the unofficial kick-off to our season of picking unwanted fruit growing in people's yards and donating it to local shelters, soup kitchens and food banks on their behalf.

Without fail, no matter how careful I've been in my mulberry gathering process, my shoes and clothes come out looking like I've been attacked by an angry version of Grimace, Ronald McDonald's googly-eyed purple pal. With much scrubbing and elbow grease, the mauve marks sometimes come out. Mostly, they just become faded remnants of a good deed done clumsily.

But something much more irreparable has happened since I last accidentally smooshed and squished fallen mulberries that I tried so hard to tiptoe around. The tree, a decades old beast whose branches seemed to reach into the sky and yet dip low enough for me reach, has been chopped down. I can only surmise that others weren't as appreciative of all it had to give --  maybe even saw it as a messy nuisance instead of a provider of healthy, versatile, fresh food.

This lovely, fruit bearing beauty technically wasn't in the yard where we harvested. Instead, it was rooted next door with its branches spreading its goodwill over four backyards. The people who live where Garden of Eating volunteers set to work loved how many mulberries it gave every June, laying down bedsheets on the grass to soften the fall from great heights of berries that look like mini bunches of grapes.

They juiced them, baked with them and gave what they couldn't use themselves. And it was a lot.

Now, this ritual that signalled the start of another season of ruined shoes -- OK, drastically altered because I still wear them -- and with it that feeling of being well on our way to another successful year is no more. Add to that the late frost this spring, which I fear has knocked down our usual pear crops a few sizes and I can't help but feel a little concerned for this little group that recently spent the money to become a bona fide non-profit, with a board of directors willing to give their time to make the Garden of Eating truly great.

It kind of feels like kindness interruptus.

So, if you have a mulberry tree, or any fruit tree, that usually goes unfulfilled come harvest time, please let us know. Drop us a line at eatingniagara@gmail.com or visit us on Facebook. We'd be truly grateful as would the countless people in need who will benefit from your generosity.

Posted by thegardenofeating-niagara at 8:57 PM EDT

Updated: Sunday, 27 May 2012 9:00 PM EDT

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The white-blue glow of grow lights tucked into a corner of my kitchen casts a harsh and eerie glare that clashes with the yellow warmth thrown by fixtures hanging from the ceiling.

Their cool appearance is a bit of an irony, given the comfortable heat they throw on the dirt filled containers beneath them. The brightness that my two grow lamps radiate is a beacon for me, inviting me over to inspect what they're shining down upon, to watch nature forced into action.

But I should know, a watched seed never grows.

Still, those rays of light pouring into the heated indoor greenhouse beneath them are symbolic of the release I feel of energy pent up over the winter. It has waited impatiently to be expended on another season's promise in the garden, starting with seeding the plants that will become my company in the yard this summer, my meals in the fall.

This week, I broke out my early gardening season supplies — lights, pods, seeds, soils, and heated bed — and broke free of the cold weather season that was, not that it felt like much of a winter this year anyway, though the calendar deemed it so.

I set about seeding 60 red Wethersfield and yellow Borettana onions, 20 Spigiarelli broccoli seeds, Lacinato kale and Georgia southern collards. Ten Corno di Toro Giallo — sweet, mildly spicy yellow peppers  — joined them in a warm, moist earth bed, catching that fluorescent glow that will spur them along.

There are cucumbers at the ready, oh so sweet melons, scarlet Nantes carrots and Sutton's harbinger peas, too.  And, of course, there will be a long list of tomato plants that will eventually join them.

It's not as though my postage stamp-sized yard has grown over the winter — the one in which garlic, chard and bloody dock are the only edibles that seem to really thrive. Instead, I will be borrowing someone else's backyard to reap what I've just sown.

You can call this generous homeowner a YIMBY because she invited me to take over her unused sunny swath on Scott Street in St. Catharines after letting me scale her towering Kieffer pear tree last fall for The Garden of Eating - Niagara.

It's not a huge backyard by any stretch but one whose space has been maximized by her greenthumb parents who lived there before her, divvying the square lot into beds for vegetables and flowers that see the sun morning to night while basking in the added warmth of light bouncing off a white brick wall nearby.

Sorry if I seem like I'm waxing poetic about something as pragmatic as vegetable gardening but truth is, I can't wait to starting digging in the earth again, getting dirt under my nails.

My impatience is helped along by the knowledge that I'll have a garden where everything really does seem to be in the proverbial cards — space, sunlight and soil that has been nurtured through its years of use and protected in its dormancy of late.

My attempts at using what I have at my condo, where the sun's presence and room to grow is scant, have given me a complex about my gardening (in)abilities and this summer will be the true test, provided Mother Nature is in a good mood, of that green thumb of mine with its seemingly unshakable brown tinge.

I will be embarking upon my latest gardening adventure with my friend Rowan, a fellow proponent of local food security who is  working to bring a food store to downtown St. Catharines. 

All we have to do is clean up a tiny corner of the borrowed yard that has grown into a mish-mash of weeds and fuzzy lamb's ears in exchange for use of a swath brimming with what seems like guaranteed gardening glory.

Those remnants of landscaping gone wrong will be replaced with bee friendly flowers. Yes, I want my garden teeming with those hard-done-by pollinators or at least make whoever shows up feel welcome.

It's a small fee for a summer's access to land and water and the bounty at the end of it all.

Spring starts officially in less than a week. But in that corner of my kitchen where that acerbic grow-light glare and gentler luminosity spilling from frosted lampshades collide, it has already begun.

Posted by thegardenofeating-niagara at 11:16 PM EDT

Updated: Thursday, 15 March 2012 11:23 PM EDT

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On a rain slicker, it's a beauty.

But as the colour of a button on the Garden of Eating's website with the word 'Donate' emblazoned on it, it makes me feel a little awkward. I hate asking for favours.

The donate button exists because I am trying to raise money for The Garden of Eating - Niagara, the residential fruit picking program I started in 2009 to provide a source of fresh fruit to social organizations that would otherwise rarely see such donations. In that time and with the help of some kicking volunteers, we've diverted 3,600 pounds of tree fruit from compost bins, having that food go to people who can eat and enjoy it instead.

As the third full harvest season looms, I have some expenses coming my way as I work toward turning this from an after-work hobby to an organization with even greater impact. To do that, I need liability insurance and harvesting and canning supplies for my helpers, who have, for the most part, been supplying their own, generous bunch that they are. But mostly, my priority is getting that insurance for the coming year.

Until now, I have covered any expenses that have come up with my own funds but it's becoming increasingly difficult to do. That's why I've resorted to putting a donate button on this site and the GOEN's official website.

I'm in the process of incorporating the Garden of Eating - Niagara as a non-profit organization. That will make accessing grants easier, provided my applications get the stamp of approval. It should also enable the GOEN to apply for a group insurance rate, which would lessen costs.

There will be a board to oversee and help direct where the program goes. In time, applying for charitable status will be in the cards but for now, this is the most appropriate route to take.

That means that anyone who donates won't be able to get a tax receipt in return but you will have my gratitude and my word that anything donated will be used only for goods and services required to carry out this program. Two years ago, I raised $50 holding a raffle and only spent it this year on labels for pears that were jarred for Community Care of St. Catharines and Thorold. That wasn't because there were no other expenses for the program until now -I've purchased ladders and baskets in the meantime. I was just fiercely protective of how that money should be spent.

No one involved with the GOEN is or will be paid for their time. That is all volunteered so no money will be used as any kind of salary.

If you do decide to give, thank you so very much. If not, that's OK, too. This doesn't mean the program is in jeopardy. It just needs a little help.

Posted by thegardenofeating-niagara at 11:17 PM EST

Updated: Monday, 20 February 2012 11:19 PM EST

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There's a good chance Mike Gretzinger's students will never look at a pear the same way again.

After spending a good part of their fall canning 800 pounds of them, there's an even better chance these tourism and hospitality specialist high skills major protegees have a serious hate-on for the humble fruit.

And I fear, it's all my fault, since the pears, and the life lesson in canning they provided, came compliments of The Garden of Eating — Niagara and a team of volunteers who spared these pears from going to waste in the orchard so they could be eaten by people who wanted and needed them.

"It was exhausting. It was just the same," lamented Lindsay Nardangeli , a Grade 12 Denis Morris Catholic High School student.

Their kitchen classroom routine with the bell-shaped fruit consisted of peeling, coring, cutting, poaching.

Repeat.

For weeks.

"It's really messy and sticky," added classmate Katelyn Trudel. "You'd only do it 15 minutes and it felt like three hours."

For much of the fall, the small class of senior students has toiled away in a kitchen at the Holiday Inn and Suites Parkway Convention Centre in St. Catharines, canning a ton of food.

Think 70 bushels of tomatoes, 15 bushels of peaches, 20 of beans, 10 of Roma beans and hundreds more pounds of beets, onions and hot peppers.

"I just say yes when a farmer asks if we want them," Gretzinger said.

In addition to teaching his students the art of preserving, Gretzinger is giving them a lesson in philanthropy, too.

Everything the class cans, including the pears for the Garden of Eating — Niagara, is donated to local food banks and other social organizations, including the Salvation Army.

That made the repetitive, labour intensive classes bearable for Denis Morris student Josh Wallace.

"Your conscience feels better," he said.

"You feel great because you're helping someone eat," interjected classmate Shallyne Coelho.

That's something they'll do again next month when the class tackles its next major culinary assignment: preparing a turkey dinner and all the fixings for 800 people at the Salvation Army's annual Christmas dinner on Dec. 14.

Still, despite being grateful there's nothing left to seal in jars this semester, the students did admit their foray into food preserving gave them new perspective on eating well. Some of them said they would even can again for pleasure instead of grades.

"It tastes cleaner, fresher," Wallace said.

The students aren't the only ones learning, either. A chef by trade, Gretzinger said he hadn't done much canning until moving to the head of the classroom six years ago. The experience has inspired even more lesson ideas for his students.

"The last few years, we've done more and more," he said. "Even myself, I'm learning more as we do it. Now I want to get out to a farm and work .. so they can see where (the food) comes from."

Posted by thegardenofeating-niagara at 9:30 PM EST

Updated: Thursday, 24 November 2011 9:33 PM EST

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It was the makings of a Steve Miller song.

Standing under the sagging branches of a kieffer pear tree in the Cherry Lane orchard in Vineland, my mind's ear couldn't help but hear the classic rocker croon 'Really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree.'

In this case, though, the song could have easily been sung about pears as volunteer Rowan Shirkie ingeniously shook the arthritic limbs of pear trees to quickly weed out all the ones ripe for the picking — without having to pick them.

With a plastic tarp laid on the ground below, all that needed to be done was a simple scoop and dump into a basket. Really, I don't know where I'd be without the resourceful crew of people who have helped with Garden of Eating — Niagara picks this year. Well, I could wager a guess: perhaps stuck up a pear tree somewhere still trying to fill a basket with fruit.

Our efforts today netted us nearly 700 pounds of pears that will be canned by Niagara Catholic District School Board students and delivered to Community Care.

By far, it was the largest harvest in the Garden of Eating's history. And the only reason we stopped was because our baskets and trunks were full. We barely made a dent in all the fruit that eventually will fall to the ground and rot.

Still, a big victory — huge, in fact — and one that comes compliments of Cherry Lane in Vineland, who donated the fruit.

But it's the small victories that have kept the Garden of Eating going for much of this year and for which, I'm equally as grateful.

Take the phone call that came Thursday night from a woman with five extra butternut squash from her garden. Too much squash, not enough people in her family to eat it. They are five of the most beautiful squash I've seen. Nearly flawless and almost all perfectly bell-shaped.

They will be delivered Tuesday to the Ozanam Centre in St. Catharines where the soup kitchen feeds as many as 70 to 100 people a day.

Next year, the woman who gave the squash plans to grow an extra row of vegetables for the Garden of Eating — Niagara to deliver to social agencies in need.

No, it won't come near a record harvest but this is still, by far, a huge gesture and one for which I am immeasurably grateful. The woman who made the offer is elderly, could easily decide to pare down her garden instead, work less and relax more, but no. She plans to break ground for people she doesn't know, only knows that she wants to help.

At a pear pick last Wednesday, I was also offered up some beautiful land in a sun-filled St. Catharines backyard. The people who live there are no longer able to tend to the gardens that have been carved out of the yard so the offer was made. "Do you know anyone who could use it?" the daughter of the homeowner asked.

I already have visions of what can grow there. So does one of the volunteers from the pick who lamented his shade-filled yard and saw the promise of the growing season ahead thanks to this offer of yard sharing.

And there's room for more. I see a jungle of tomato plants, hunched over with heavy bulbous fruit, perkier pepper plants proffering up their goodness and more. Maybe lettuce. Or squash. Beans. Chard. Let me know if you'd like to share in the plot for your own use or to donate the harvest.

The possibilities seem endless. Much like the stomachs in need of filling.

Small victories but they all add up.

And for that, I am thankful.

Posted by thegardenofeating-niagara at 6:20 PM EDT

Updated: Sunday, 27 May 2012 9:16 PM EDT

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