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.

Summer fruit

Summer has moved quickly and berry season has begun. I noticed that one of the nanking cherry bushes  was in bloom in a park and helped myself.

Nanking are tasty but a huge amount of work to process.

I decided on a cobbler and hauled out the solar oven since it was ridiculously hot and I didn't want to turn on the oven. Took a few hours but it cooked nicely.

Tasted great with ice cream!

Raspberry season is now in full swing and we're getting a gallon every day with no end in sight. I've had to call in reinforcements so we can get the picking done before it gets too hot each day.

The heat is also helping the squash plants (after a terrible spring) and I'm starting to see cucumbers. Not sure we have enough time left for melons but you never know.

The tomatoes are also looking good. It takes a lot of water to keep them alive and growing in this heat.

Bees are loving the poppies.

The back apple tree is also really giving it this year. 

We have many more sweet cherries this year than last. They need a few more weeks to really sweeten up.

Unpictured is the corn which has finally taken off and is a couple of feet hight. I have had to stake the plants against the wind but I am hopeful we'll get a good crop this year with all of the water and sunlight.

Fireweed jelly

Alright, well, the last month kind of got away from me! Despite a lot of rain and cold temperatures, the garden is chugging along, with the cooler-season pants doing well.

The things that need heat (squash, melons, peppers, eggplants) have been suffering and I've lost a fair number of starters. The fruit trees and bushes are loving the moisture, though with evidence of cherries and lots of raspberries this year.

The spinach is bolting and also taking a beating from leaf miners.

In better news, the corns is up and looks to be happier in this sunnier spot.

The brussel sprouts also seem to be doing pretty well and I went and bought a few more plans to fill in elsewhere.

Lots of last year's annuals have also self-seeded and returned.

On the weekend, we foraged some fireweed blossoms to make jelly. A few years ago, I tried some peony jelly and this was on my list of alternatives to try.

The blossoms were beautiful and fragrant.

A quick boil extracted the colour and flavour and it was insanely purple.

I used some pectin and lemon juice and sugar to make a jelly and then canned it.

Very ruby coloured in the end. Tastes floral--not all that different from rose or peony jelly.

 

Now back to the weeding!

Rhubarb, dandelion salve, and pies

We have great crop of dandelions this year and I wanted to do two things with them: dandelion salve and dandelion pesto. This past week, we got the salve. Maybe pesto next week.

The interweb attributes all manner of miracles to dandelion salve; I was mostly interested in using up the various supplies Jess bought several years ago to make her own cosmetics and then lost interest in.

A quick google suggested pick a jar of blooms, air dry to reduce water content, and then soak for a week in a mix of coconut and olive oil. Then strain, heat and melt in bees wax and shea butter, and pour into tins or jars.

The recipe worked pretty much as advertised. In retrospect, a bit of scent (vanilla or some lemon essential oil) might have been a good addition. The finished product turns solid as it cools. It has done a good job of pasting the dry skin on my legs back down. So I suspect, using only $40 in supplies, we saved ourselves a good $10 at London Drugs... .

The rain has kept us inside much of the weekend. I did go out and harvest some rhubarb. I moved out red plants around the front this year so have on green rhubarb to cut from. This plants will get wiped out when the garage demo occurs.

We frozen about 8 or 10 cups for use in strawberry-rhubarb pie filling later this summer.

We also baked pies to use up some of last year's pie fillings. A mix of strawberry-rhubarb and strawberry-saskatoon.

The garden is otherwise coming along We had our first harvest of spinach this week (went into a frittata). I'm a bit worried about half of the seed potatoes did not sprout (no sign of potatoes) so I'm going to go out and dig about. If they are a bust, then we're going to replant with beans, beets, lettuce and carrots.

End of the harvest

So winter came a touch early this year, with snow and frost putting the garden to bed by the 13th!

We managed to get all of the tender stuff inside. While we wanted for the root crops to thaw out, we processed some acorns we harvested from nearly tree.

Tannins make the acorns inedible. We crushed the, between two flat pieces of wood to break the shells open.

We then took the meat and tried to leech the tannins out in water.

Ten days of leeching (with multiple water changes) was not super effective. Some of the bitterness came out but not much and the process slowed down over time.

So I decided to boil them. About 90 minutes of boiling with eight water changes and they were edible (and softer). They were not super tasty, though.

We tried roasting them in the oven with a bit of oil and salt (like pumpkin seeds). That helped slightly but the general consensus was that this was starvation food and not worth the effort. Acorns from a different type of oak might well yield a different outcome (I think we have a green oak next door).

 As the snow melted, some flowers put on a last, desperate show!

 We then harvest the last the the carrots and beets.

The next week is supposed to be sunny but cool so I have disassembling the trellises and dumping the water barrels. I'll also clean up the beds and turn in the mulch before raking the leaves across. If I get ambitious, we may pick some sea buckthorn berries and try jelly.