Monday, August 8, 2011

Lilikoi Jelly Take 2 - Urban Foraging








this is such a sweet story. it begins with our little lilikoi (passion fruit) weed in our backyard that i blogged about last year. well this spring the plant exploded all over our little area...over our lemon trees and up our pine tree and went crazy. i was so excited when the little lilikoi buds started sprouting and dreamt about all the jelly and sauce i was going to make...

then...we got new gardeners. who did not see the same beautiful lilikoi plant, but a weed, rather. a weed that was choking the life of our other trees...so most of it was cut. about half of the plant was cut and i was so heartbroken over it. honestly. it was stupid silly how sad i was. and then the next time the gardeners were coming we were to be out of town and so i recruited my father in law to show them that we actually love this weed and please don't cut the rest of it - feel free to move it (which is like next to impossible - that think grabs on!) but not cut it and guess what? they cut it...not ALL of it, but most of it and now instead of seeing about 50 little fruits i see 2. 

i have since cleared it up and we together created a space for the plant, but i thought my plans for jelly were done for. 

i also at this time need to mention that i have been running again on my designated mornings and i walk/run through my neighborhood and pass a couple houses that have fruiting trees and i see the (perfectly good) fruit on the ground because no one is harvesting it. i started getting mad seeing all these trees not being taken advantage of their gifts and started formulating a letter in my head to leave at these houses...asking them for permission to pick their tree and in exchange giving them a jar of jelly...or whatever...i have also been hearing a ton of stories about urban foraging and thought it would just make perfect sense. 


okay so...that is all the background...now i will take you to the other morning playing at a park with my boys and bryson and i were trying to find a cache hidden somewhere near this flood drain...we looked and looked everywhere and couldnt find the dern thing and as we were looking i spotted this huge lilikoi plant! it was in a place hard to get to, but i was trying to figure out how i could make it over there with a baby in my ergo and two other small kids when i spotted another, even larger bush down the way! it was out of the way enough that i dont believe it was sprayed or tended - it was among other wild flowers and grasses and judging by the amount of bugs we also brought home with us, i am even more convinced it was truly wild. i told bryson to grab a bag in the car and recruited him to help me pick...and pick we did! (see him holding up the bag full as evidence)

so the story ends with me getting my passion fruit after all. and me making my jelly after all. and teaching my sons that what is a weed to some people is actually a treasure to others. pretty good story.


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