I ate a couple of the pickling cukes growing right next to the toloache for breakfast this morning, and while I think it’s possible that the datura influence the black nightshade, adding alkaloids, because these plants are related, clearly cucumbers and daturas play well together: my cukes were just cukes, not portals to a world of rage and restless dreams.:) Always nice in a cuke.

I also put a bunch of nightshade berries in the dehydrator, but The Black Toad, as I have begun to refer to it, does not want to be dry. It reveals its fundamental amphibian nature in its preference for the juicy state. It has stayed sticky for days, gumming up my dehydrator screens and making me realize that if I want to save these berries, I will have to freeze or process them in some way. I will try them in an ink and perhaps in a sacramental wine. I’ve got a bumper crop of chichiquelite on the way.

I harvested great bunches of wormwood in the bud stage, stripped off the leaves and flowers, and dehydrated them when the toloache was done. I’m going to use some of that to do Starkey’s glorified essence of wormwood (and will do the same with the mugwort I just dried). I’ve been wanting to do that alchemical procedure for years and noticed that a wine-making supply place had the salts of tartar (potassium carbonate) called for.

Day of the Dead marigolds are sprouting, but I think they will only just be flowering by the time frost hits, since I started them so late. I might get some of the black sunflowers, though, as one of them is pretty tall already. I passed a house the other day that has them growing alongside the driveway. Very nice.

Speaking of black, check out the weird snake head seed pod on the unmatta. I tell you, this plant lives up to its rep.

Continuing with the black theme, I bought ten pounds of black plums last week and started my first wine attempt, a black plum wine in a two-gallon crock. It’s already ready to rack into the secondary fermenter. I mentioned this to my elderly neighbor, and he happily told me how his father-in-law, who had a farm nearby, used to make plum wine in a giant crock waist high. I had read that “old-timers” started wine in a crock with a towel and plate on top, but it was neat to have this confirmed by a real old-timer.:) The only crock-work I had heard about prior to this was how my great-grandmother use to make pickles in a towel-covered crock she kept under the sink.

With the rest of the plums I made a plum pickle in red wine & wine vinegar with cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. That one took three times draining the syrup off the fruit, boiling it, and returning it to the fruit, which to me feels very much like a magical ritual. I had some extra that I didn’t process and tasted–very wonderful. I also tasted some of the spiced black cherry pickle I put together a while ago that has been sitting in the fridge, doing its thing. What a transformation! They have gone from being unpleasantly vinegary to being just-right sour with a cherry taste. On the other hand, I tossed the pickled turnips, although they were still fine, because they were just too salty for me. They weren’t crisp, either, and next time I will try some grape leaves in there to crisp them up. I’ll make more this fall, when turnips come back in season.