It is apple season in Edmonton. We nipped across the lane to pick a batch of crab apples from our neighbour's yard. These were lovely red ones. After weeding out some hail damage and some minor prep work, I juiced them last night.
Today I cooked them down into jelly. I'd forgotten how little work this was when compared to cooking down strawberry jam.
The rest was 2.5 litres of jelly from 8 litres of berries. The colour is very dark and looks great in the jars. As Jennifer likes crab apple jelly, we'll likely pick some more over the next week or two.
In the basement, I have my first 5 gallon batch of cider cooking away. I added some sugar to raise the specific gravity and then pitched the yeast. This is just starting to cook and I'll likely leave it alone for 10 days and then rack off for a secondary ferment.
The pre-treatment juice was very interesting--much more complex and tart than store-bought apple juice. It might need to blended with something to make it sweeter in the end. I hope to make a second batch, assuming I can get enough apples to do so.
I'd also like to sauce some apples. Jessica is keen but would rather read than peel apples.
On the window ledge, the first of the paste tomatoes I rescued from last week's hail are starting to ripen. I'd like to can a bunch of these for the winter.
We're continuing to make progressing in re-aligning the back garden as we dig up potatoes for use. The big task will actually be turning down a large amount of sod in the front yard for garden. Maybe when Jessica goes back to school... .
I dug up a bit more sod this spring. It is hard work. A neighbour offered to take it to the dump for me. Nice neighbour :) We couldn't believe it was 800 lbs. (I guess they aren't metric here) It's a slow job. Lovely jelly.
ReplyDeleteThanks Sarah; just finished turning 240 sq feet of lawn down and I'm beat! Now to order some dirt and then con some neighborhood kids into playing earthmovers... .
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