Tonight the clocks, if modern enough, will spring forward all on their own. The sun is already setting near 7 p.m., so starting tomorrow it will set at 8.
We spring forward into more sunlight and, although it will snow more before winter is over, the snow won’t last long from here on out. Today it was in the 40s and we got a real sense of spring. I opened up the cold frame and felt inside. The soil was hot and dry. It’s so tempting to throw some seeds in there, but I’ll try to contain myself. It’s way too early. If the temperature goes below 20 degrees at night, young plants will freeze. I’ll stick to the indoor lights in the new plant room for a few more weeks.
Every year the goal is to start eating fresh produce earlier and end later. Today I had the great experience of eating the very last of the 2014 potatoes and also the very first small salad from greens growing on the windowsill under a fluorescent light. Earliest spring met late summer.
Because it is still winter, I’ve been playing around with new projects. “The year of ferment” is over, but a good fermentation project is always welcome. A few weeks ago My sister-in-law gave me a piece of her kombucha mother. I plopped it in some sugary green tea and in five days I filtered some into a pint jar. It was delicious, like really good, flavorful iced tea. Not much fizz, but tasty.
Steve said it looked like something from the bottom of the pond (to be fair, he was also looking at a jar with chia seeds in it). He’s not far off when the green tea has left grassy dust along the bottom of the jar and the mother is trailing strands of yeast. The mother looks like a milky jellyfish. The compact disc Annie gave to me has expanded in my larger container.
Kombucha is made by fermenting tea with caffeine and a large quantity of sugar (3/4 cup for 2 quarts of tea). The mother eats sugar and grows on it. The tea loses its sugar and gains probiotics and vitamin C. The health benefits of kombucha are not proven and are probably overstated, but it tastes good and supposedly improves digestion. It has occurred to me, however, that I might not be letting it ferment long enough, and just enjoying an excuse to drink sweet tea!
If you want to make your own kombucha, find someone who can give you a piece of their mother, or you can buy one online. This is the best site about kombucha I’ve found: http://www.kombuchabrooklyn.com.