Newsletter - May 26, 2021

Dear brothers and sisters,

Earlier today I visited a prominent natural food store here in Berkeley.It was replete with  fine displays of the new crop of organic peaches, nectarines and apricots. But the prices were outrageous. $4.99 per pound for most fruits with  cherries at $9.99.This is sad as California produces most of the organic fruit in the US. It means that in New York City these fruits are retailing at $6 to $8 per pound or more. Without a doubt, inflation is roaring. They say that prices have risen more swiftly then anything they've seen since they began keeping records.This, in effect, is a grievous, inequitable tax on the poor.

Given the massive amounts of fake money that are being pumped into the economy it had to happen. It seems likely that the result will be hyper inflation; it will be followed by a  severe  crash and then the economy will implode. One can only imagine the implications for the food chain. That's why we say to you, "grow it yourself" or at least a part of the food you eat.

This Spring plant a victory garden. We urge you to do so; make it replete with tomatoes, lettuce, kale, spinach and chard. Let's get our hands and feet back into living earth; it will sustain us come what may.

Please watch the video, your comments and suggestions are always most welcome.

Jesse Schwartz PhD
President
Living Tree Community Foods

Amy Goldman of Rhinebeck, New York, is a gardener, author, artist, and advocate for seed saving, plant breeding, and preserving heirloom fruits and vegetables. Her mission? To celebrate and catalogue the amazing diversity of standard, open-pollinated varieties, and to promote their conservation. A former board chair of Seed Savers Exchange, she now serves the organization as a special adviser. 

Amy—described as “perhaps the world’s premier vegetable gardener” by Gregory Long, president emeritus of the New York Botanical Garden—has authored five books, including four that have earned the American Horticultural Society Book of the Year award: Melons for the Passionate Grower (2002), The Compleat Squash: A Passionate Grower’s Guide to Pumpkins, Squashes, and Gourds (2004), The Heirloom Tomato: From Garden to Table (2008), and The Melon (2019), illustrated by Victor Schrager. She has also written Heirloom Harvest: Modern Daguerreotypes of Historic Garden Treasures (2015), illustrated by Jerry Spagnoli.

What first piqued your interest in melons?
Melons and watermelons are a lifelong love and calling. They stir passions and memories in me. When I taste the cream of the crop, I can picture my parents—melon mavens—swooning over similarly luscious fruits at meals during my childhood. I have so many happy memories of melon-filled summers. I take great pleasure in cultivating heirloom rarities, then saving and sharing their seed. It’s time to bring back some of the simple culinary pleasures of the past and introduce them to a new generation. 

Can you share one fun fact about melons—something most people likely would not know?
Melons and watermelons are vining crops that belong to two different species within the cucurbitaceae or gourd family of plants. Recent phylogenetic studies show that the cucurbits most likely originated in Asia in the late Cretaceous period (over 70 million years ago). Various lineages found their way time and again to different continents by transoceanic long-distance dispersal. Picture gourds afloat! Watermelon’s more recent place of origin is in Africa, while the wild progenitor of melon has been found growing in India, and its closest relative lives in Australia.

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