The weather was cool this morning so I decided to tackle some long over-due jam making. We made about 4 litres of jam today, 8 jars of raspberry and another 8 jars of raspberry-strawberry-saskatoon berry mix. That puts us about half way to my goal for the year (which is 52 jars).
We then ventured outside and started work on two new cold frames/raised beds. I have a rather difficult spot in the garden that gets lots of light in the winter but gets shaded in the summer. The soil is also terrible and not redeemable. Nothing grows there except some irises and day lilies.
We dropped in on a salvage place yesterday and picked up two old single-pane storm windows that are roughly 3x3. Then I grabbed some wood last night and today we're driving screws. I went with thinner slats and corner posts to keep the weight and cost down. The corner posts also give the glass something to rest on as the sit, quasi-recessed in the frame. Jess was very helpful, astutely intuiting what my grunts and swearing meant.
I've set these roughly in place in the garden. I will carve out about three inches of the existing "dirt" and replace it with something better and then add about three more inches inside the frame. This should give us enough room to grow spinach and kale in the autumn and spring. And perhaps some shallow beets.
Each of the frames cane be accessed from opposite sides--I'll drop in some stepping stones. The rest of the garden I will just leave to grow around them.
In a fit of homemaking, I also made risotto and baked a peach pie tonight. Now to go put my feet up!
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