Raspberry ice cream, syrup, and other garden things

Well, we're ass-deep in raspberry season (still) and I picked three gallons yesterday. We've been giving berries away, eating them as fast as we can, and freezing the rest. The freezer is looking full enough that I may need to break out the canner and sweat out a couple of gallons of jam in the summer heat.

Jenn has been trying to incorporate them into new recipes, including making raspberry ice cream (berries, condensed milk, maybe a touch of vanilla, and whipping cream; mix and freeze).

This was super good, especially with more berries on top. She's promised another batch for when the kid gets home on some days off.

The robins and I have managed to pick our saskatoon bush clean, running into lots of bee friends along the way.

I saw someone make saskatoon-raspberry syrup for pancakes online so I followed their recipe with at test batch.

A quick heat to soften, then through the food mill to get the skins and most of the seeds out.

Then some sugar and lemon juice and a quick boil to incorporate. Since this was a small test-batch, I didn't both to water bath it--it just went into the fridge.

It was a little too gooey for syrup (loose jelly texture) so we decided to use it as an ice cream topping. It has a lovely rich flavour from the saskatoons.

The rest of the garden goes in fits and starts. I picked the last of the peas. They did poorly this year (no idea why, maybe too much water?).

Some of the peppers have fruited. Others are struggling with the cooler weather and rain.

The grapes, though are really liking the water and I think we'll have enough for a small batch of jelly.

There is finally good leaf growth on the various squash plants and a few fruit are setting. I think, with two months left, we should get something useful. I'm thinking about rejigging the back gardens this fall so I might plant them elsewhere next year.

The rain is also plumping up the apples nicely.

This coming week, I need to finish curing the garlic and get it ready for storage. I'm also hopeful we'll start to see some green beans from the plants. I should also get the dehydrator out and do another round of herbs.