A taste of summer

 
As I sit curled up under a fuzzy blanket, a draft of cold air whistling through my window, my mind couldn't help but turn wistfully to summer. I've been dreaming of gardens lately and wondering when is too early to start drawing up a plan for my own little potager.

But since I haven't even secured a spot in Toronto's allotment gardens (as I plan to do), I thought I'd put my energies to use by reminiscing about summer and posting several pictures of sun-soaked fruit.

No writer does more justice to the bounty of nature than Henry David Thoreau, who documented the growth of everything around him in Wild Fruits. And so I turn to him for the words to accompany the pictures.

On wild blueberries:

"These berries have a very innocent ambrosial taste, as if made of the ether itself, as they plainly are coloured with it."

On wild apples:

"Early apples begin to ripe about the first of August, but I think that none of them are so good to eat as some to smell. One is worth more to scent your handkerchief with than any perfume which they sell in the shops. Some gnarly apple which I pick up in the road reminds me by its fragrance of all the wealth of Pomona - carrying me forward to those days when they will be collected in golden and ruddy heaps in orchards and about cider-mills."

On wild raspberries:

"The sight of these light red berries on a comparatively large and leafy bush - as, perchance, winding our way through the little groves which they make, we pluck the fruit dripping with rain - surprises us while it reminds us of the progress of the year."

 

On wild fruits in general:

"Most of us are still related to our native fields as the navigator to undiscovered islands in the sea. We can any afternoon discover a new fruit there which will surprise us by its beauty or sweetness."