Cider, tomatoes, pumpkin and soil

It has been a busy week, capped off by a morning of cidering in the garage. I managed to press another four gallons and it is in the basement fermenting. Different apples yielded a much sweeter cider, with a higher specific gravity. I decided against killing the natural yeast but I did hit it with some store-bought yeast as well. Fingers crossed. Of course, apple cider vinegar is also nice... .

I did a small fruit pick this weekfor Operation Fruit Rescue and also turned 60 medium-sized paste tomatoes into five 500ml jars of tomatoes for the winter. Each time I make preserves I reminded how convenient it is to go to the store and but a flat of 26oz cans of whatever I want.

We dried a bunch of mint for tea and some chard and beet greens for smoothies this morning. I also brought myself to pick the final (and only) bell pepper of the summer (hail and slugs getting the rest). I see there are a few hot papers out there still.

The pumpkin patch will yield one pumpkin this year. But it is a big one (beach-ball sized) and bears the scars of eight hail storms. But no signs of rot and it is hardening up nicely.

The strawberry patch is also putting on a late-season push. The berries are not numerous but they are delicious.

And, as we harvest the veggies and open up the canopy, the marigolds are flowering again. These are brilliantly, almost impossibly orange amid the green, yellow and grays of the garden.

I know a picture of dirt is dorky, but I was putting three raised beds behind the garage down for the winter. They need a bit of bone meal and lime still, but the till of the soil is crazy good. You can stick you hand in up to your wrist before it starts to get difficult. This bed will have sugar beets next year.

I see we have another batch of tomatoes ripening on the window sill and the last of the zucchini (euthanized the plants--enough already!) so maybe I'll make salsa. Jenn made the entire dinner from our garden (roasted roots, salad) excepting some leftover biscuits I made Thursday night.

First potatoes and reordering the beds

I've started the potato harvest this week. Some of the early potatoes (blue caribe) are starting to die back and the taste if fresh potatoes is too alluring to wait any longer. I pulled three plants today (in the shady part of the bed and got a modest haul of these purple-skinned, white-fleshed potatoes. No scab so far! The late-season Russian blue are still flowering so I expect we'll have a decent staging of this harvest (rather than a glut).

As crops have been coming out, I've started re-ordering the beds for next year. After a couple of years of using areas, I've decided to move to rows. I'm just getting too old and inflexible to contort myself weeding in order to get a few extra feet of productive space!

That end, I've trimmed back the lilac and replanted some other flowers to open up the south end of the garage bed. I then harvested the south-most potatoes and started pushing soil into north-south rows (you can see this in front of the lilac--north is to the left). I think I can likely get three rows and two walkways in the narrow part of this bed, adding rows as we move north and the garden widens out. As I harvest more (e.g., the onion bed to the right of the bird bath), I will extend the rows northward. The good news so far is that the soil is amazing to work with--soft and loamy.

Operation Fruit Rescue Edmonton appears set to gear up in time for the apple season. This is very exciting as apple sauce, pie, butter and rings (not to mention cider) are in the offing. I successfully wired the garburetor so I have an apple crusher to go with my press.

More pie and sugar beet seeds

The freezer clean out continued this weekend with raspberry-apple pie. The apples were (I think) from Operation Fruit Rescue picks and the raspberries were from Roy's Raspberry farm. Very tasty--next is strawberry-rhubarb pie. I also put a bunch of frozen beans and carrots into soup on the weekend.

In the mail yesterday came my sugar beet seeds. Couldn't find any locally but the folks at Apache suggested I e-order from Seeds for Change (which have great heirloom seeds). I put together the minimum $5 order (kale, beans and the beets) and then went to check out and they wanted $22 for shipping (cheapest option)! So I went to ebay and got 500 seeds (plus a random piece of scripture!?) for $11. Come on spring!

Tomatoes

The tomatoes have started to ripen and the window sills are starting to fill with quasi-ripe ones I have saved from the slugs. So this means tomato salads, sandwiches and (if I get my act together and lunch) tomato soup.

I love this part of the year where a whole meal can come from the backyard. Last night we had baked potatoes (dug Sunday), tomato salad (with tomatoes, onions and basil from the yard) and cucumbers with dip. And a bit of bread from a local bakery (too hot to bake).

I expect we'll be harvesting carrots and potatoes this weekend. The beans are also starting to dry on the plants and we've shelled our first batch. And I have a bunch of apples from an operation fruit rescue pick to deal with tonight. More apple sauce and butter, I expect.

Operation Fruit Rescue Edmonton apple pick and jamming

I organized my first apple pick for Operation Fruit Rescue Edmonton last night. Four volunteers and myself picked about 250lbs of apples until height and good sense brought things to an end. We ended up donating about 130lbs of fruit, with the rest to the very generous grower and the volunteers. The baking apples were huge (about 20% larger than the grannysmith we can get in the store).

I ended up with a small bag of delicious baking apples and baked three pies (two for the freezer) and a crisp tonight. Over the weekend, I jammed a bunch of strawberries and saskatoon berries. The mixture looked right and was sheeting but then didn't set up all that well. So I guess I made syrup (which is delicious).

We had crazy hail this afternoon and a lot of rain. This scuttled my second apple pick so we'll try again Sunday. The three trees we have planned look a big more manageable in terms of height. The garden seems to have survived mostly intact but the green beans took quite a beating and may be done for the season.

In the meantime, I will see what can be jammed this weekend if I have time to free up some more freezer space.

Operation Fruit Rescue Edmonton: Cherries

I organized my first pick as a fruit captain for Operation Fruit Rescue Edmonton last night. I picked a small place (one evans cherry tree) that we could do as a family so I could see how one of these works start to finish before organizing a multi-picker event.

In about 45 minutes we managed to get 16 litres (about 28 pounds) of cherries. As the ants, wasps and birds had been at them for awhile, we sorted out the bad and ended up with 12 litres of usable fruit at the cost of one wasp bite. The grower didn't want her share, so four litres goes to OFRE and four litres to a charity (likely Ronald McDonald House).

I was up early this morning pitting. I'll make a cherry pie and a batch of jam tonight. We also put enough cherries in the freezer for four more pies this winter. That is enough cherries for me so I'll see what other fruit is available for picking next week. Today, friends have offered me a go at their their apple tree and tomorrow I'm going raspberry picking so I expect I'll be busy in the kitchen this week.

Our own garden is also starting to bear. I have been pretty good about staying on top of the zucchini but ended up with a bunch of big ones this week. Most we shredded or cut up and froze for stews and loafs this winter (10 cups).

We also ended up with another 8 cups of yellow and green beans. I froze some, we ate some and I gave half away. I'm glad the beans are slowing down a bit. I managed to also give away a bunch more irises and finished (mostly) recovering some more room for vegetables in the garden next year.

The dirt in behind the beans will get amended this fall and the raised bed taken apart and dug in. I expect we'll do beans here next year while potatoes will fill the foreground. Now off to compost a buttload of rotten cherries and pits.