Apples and pesto

We're reaching the point where planting decisions are now starting to come back and haunt me.

The grape vine is looking like it will produce enough grapes this year to make a very small batch of jelly.

Jess helped me pick the last of the early apple tree last week.

We had about a third of the tree's production left. I made crisps and such but also cooked a bunch down to make apple sauce.

The extra sauce that wouldn't fit in the canner got turned into apple butter and canned later. I'll probably repeat this with the later tree once we harvest it (probably the last half of September).

Some of the peppers are ready enough to be incorporated in dinners.

The squash are in a race against the front. We might get this hubbard squash off.

The cucumbers were a wash out this year and I'll need to make better planting decisions with them next summer.

A friend gifted me a head of celery. We ate a few stalks and then I dehydrated the rest. It shrinks down to about half of a cup once the water is out.

I also harvested enough of the basil to make some garlic scape pesto to freeze for the winter months.

We've been trying to enjoy the garden as fall sets in and had out first autumn fire the other night. The huge squash patch in the background continues to grow.

There are a couple of pumpkins I'm feeling good about. Maybe also some butternut squash. The vines are sprawling and hiding little pumpkins everywhere, including two that are growing at chest height on raspberry canes.

Today's task is to deal with the first of the tomatoes. We're getting too many to eat but not enough to can (kind of a busy year for tomatoes in my garden) so I'm thinking of freezing them whole or chopped for later processing.

Plums, squash, tomatoes and melons

As we head into fall, the garden is hitting its stride. The sunflower patch is blooming, much to the delight of the bees. I'm hoping the cosmos will also put on a show out by the back gate.

I harvested the last of our plum crop, which was tasty but is mostly encouraging for the future.

We have a couple of squash on the go, including this on giant pumpkin that is presently beachball sized.

We are starting to see signs of a modest tomato harvest (not really hot enough, early enough for a good harvest).

Last week, I had written off the melon crop due to lack of heat. This week, I find seven small cantaloupes  on the vines. I dunno. Fingers cross the frost stays away until October.

I did some carrot thinning and froze a few bags of chopped carrots for use in the winter along with a few more green beans.

The apples are demanding attention and we have been making crisps and such.

I had to call out the reinforcements on the weekend when I made and canned five litres of apple pie filling.

I've also begun digging rough potatoes to eat. Most of the crop can stay in the ground for now.

Now back to apple picking.

Garlic, melons, water, and thistle

Well, we had both big heat and big rain this week! The garden welcomed both. On the rainy day, I spent some time in the garage trimming off the stalks from the garlic. It was mostly dried but I decided to leave it another two weeks to finish curing.

Flowers of the friendly and unfriendly kind are in heavy bloom this week. I'm not a bit fan of thistle, but this picture turned out really well.

Raspberry picking continues and I tried a second batch of saskatoon-raspberry syrup, with a slightly different recipe. The dog has a bit of a raspberry problem and insisted on closely supervising all work.

The result this time was tasty but a bit too runny. Next time I'll ad the lemon juice back in. This made enough that I canned four jars for winter.

We're also experimenting with other raspberry recipes, including raspberry crisp (sour!). The freezer is nearing capacity so I fear I will be jamming in the heat this week.

We had the mother of all rain storms. It is unusual for the water to pool in the pathways as well as in between the rows of carrots!

But the heat has kicked the squash and melon plants into gear. Finally, I'm seeing some vining and blooming on the cantaloupe.

The cucumber plants is also finally starting to climb.

The second sowing of lettuce is also now ready. The first sowing is well into bolting. Not a great picture below but I thought the colours were lovely.

I am hopeful we'll be done with raspberries this week and I can have a short break before the apples start. I did get the dehydrator going and got another batch of mint dried and put away. It will be a few more weeks before the basil is big enough to get a huge harvest off of.

Raspberries, garlic, and saskatoon jelly

As predicted, raspberry production is now a gallon a day. This was a quick pick this morning on one side of the yard. Most of these are going into the freezer for later processing. The rest are getting eaten fresh or given away. We finally finished last year's frozen berries yesterday!!

I noticed that these thorny-assed black raspberries, which I thought I had eliminated, have managed to make a comeback underneath the saskatoon bush. They are tasty (much richer in flavour and not as acidic as red raspberries) but the thorns are horrendous.

The wind has also been beating some of the canes against the fence, leaving CSI-like splatter behind.

Jess was home this week. In addition to picking some berries, she helped me pull the garlic.

We ended up with 90 heads this year, which is enough to get us through the winter and also to have some to give away or barter with.

After they dried enough that I could brush the dirt off, I hung them in the garage to cure. The garage reeks of garlic. As soon as you open the door, you can smell it.

Overall, the size of the heads is much improved over past years. A few years of selective breeding had increased the average head size to at least commercial sized. A few are huge.

The rest of the garden is slowly coming along. We have enough dill weed so I'm letting some of the plants seed, both to give us some dill seed and also to ensure it comes back next year.

Jess did a quick harvest of ripe cherries off the tree. I did a second cull today and, pitted, we have one and a bit cups (which is the first significant harvest we've had). Not bad for year three. I will probably try some cherry tarts to use them up (they are frozen right now).

Part of Jess's job requires seed harvesting. It is berry season up north and they picked dew berries, saskatoons, and wild strawberries last week. Her last shift was processing the berries, basically juicing them to get the seed out so they can dry and be collected. This meant she could bring home some saskatoon juice (it takes a lot of berries to get a litre of saskatoon juice).

There is some much pectin in the juice that it starts to set immediately on its own. We decided to make jelly. I used a crab apple recipe to get to the proportions.

The chunks in the show below are just juice that has gelled on its own.

The flavour is good and we got four small jars plus a bit of excess in the end.

We did. however overcook it, so it is hard to spread. Jenn suggests we ball it and cover it in chocolate to make some kind of bonbon.

The rest of the yard is still blooming. Below are what remains of my lilies after five years of lily beetle infestation. Super pretty for a short time but just too vulnerable to bugs to bother re-establishing any number of them, when dallies grow so well here.

I suspect we'll still be dealing with a raspberry glut next week. The apples are showing encouraging size already, probably a function of the additional rain we've had this year.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Jam

The last two weeks in the yard have been pretty quiet, involving weeding, succession seeding, and a battle with some ants in one of the garden boxes. The rhubarb out front has recovered from last year's drought enough for me to take some stalks.

I've made strawberry-rhubarb pie filling before but I've never tried it as a jam, so I found a recipe online and some frozen strawberries and away we went.

Maybe a bit sweeter than I might like my jams, but it definitely tastes good. Texture is basically a soft spread, not all that different from stewed rhubarb. Might be good on pancakes on a cold, winter day. I'm going to try Saskatoon-rhubarb jam later in the season. Sounds gross but the pies we've tried with this combination are amazing.

The flowers we bought seem to be doing very well in the planters and pots. Keeping them wet in the early heat is quite a job.

The raspberries are all in bloom, to the delight of the bees.

The chives have also flowered like crazy out front beneath the plum tree.

In more exciting news, it looks like the plum tree has set a small number of fruit after a very pretty blossom this spring. Hopefully it will see these through to the fall.

I was wandering the back alleys of the neighbourhood the other morning and noticed some of my neighbours have put up this lovely grape trellis and plants the base on both sides with a huge strawberry patch. Very pretty!

This week, I need to do some thinning of the carrots and the beets and hopefully harvest some lettuce for salads.