Buffalo berry jelly

Every year, Jess and I forage some new fruit from the valley and try to make it into jam or jelly. It started out as a botany/history lesson and, as Jess has gotten older, has now morphed in an annual zombie-themed quest centring on the question of "what food is there to eat in Edmonton besides people"?

In the past we've foraged Saskatoons, choke cherries, rose hips, red elderberries, nanking cherries, crab apples, and high bush cranberries and made mostly jelly. Reviews have been mixed... . This year I wanted to try sea buckthorn berries which are everywhere on city parkland. As it turns out, I actually picked buffalo berries, mistaking them for sea buckthorn (cough, cough).

I'd picked out a couple of candidates this spring while cycling. Most books suggest waiting until after the first frost to sweeten the berries up some. I decided to roll the dice now as we had time and the red berries were fairly tasty (somewhere between a tart plum and a sour cherries). 

We ended up with about a third of a gallon (1.5 litres) before interest in picking started to wane. The thorns weren't too bad but I did get a couple of good stickings trying to bring a high branch down low for picking.

As we've had uneven success with foraged preserves, I just did a quick a dirty jelly with them. I washed, boiled and strained the berries. They could have stood a second filtering through cheese cloth but I was in hurry. The juice smelled (oddly) like cooking sweet potatoes or perhaps roasted pumpkin. Sweet but squashy.

I then added some sugar and a touch of lemon juice and boiled. The aroma changed toward citrus as it boiled. We got three cups of jelly out of this. I didn't bother skimming the foam but that would be an important step if I was going to store or gift (again, this was a quick and dirty effort to see what the jelly would be like).

The jelly set up nicely. I didn't bother to water bath such a small batch--they can just sit in the fridge until eaten. It has a citrusy taste and good colour. It is up there with chokecherries in terms of successful foraged jellies. I'm not sure I would do this again, but it was a fun project. And, we can try sea buckthorn next year!

The rest of the garden is winding down. The potatoes weren't super productive this year. I would guess a lack of water and compacted soil in the back beds are a factor here. The onions and apples were also a bit smaller than past years.

The tomatoes are going great guns. I see we have some slugs in our back bed holing the green tomatoes so I picked the low-hangers (that the slugs seem to focus on) and brought them into ripen The rest will stay on the vines until frost threatens.

While we wait for the growing season to end, I'm continuing to so some bed amendments. The bed by the garage had become pretty compacted over time and also invaded by crab grass. I cut out a touch more lawn to square the bed up and then started to loosen the soil. I'll work a big load of manure into the beds a bit later in the fall.

This afternoon's task is to get the rhubarb and strawberry wines in the basement racked off for bulk storage.

Wine and jam

We've had a busy few days trying to keep on top of the garden with the raspberry season in full swing. We have made a couple of batches of jam, one of which I over cooked and turned into toffee.

We also racked off the strawberry wine and have set it aside to clarify and settle some. I've put Jess on raspberry duty. The 50 feet of canes we have put in over the past few years have become a roaring success and we can pick a gallon or more every other day.

I've been busy jamming.

We also pulled in the first crop of green beans and peas. The beans we blanched and froze for soup this winter. The peas have been eaten fresh.

We've finally had a few days of good soaking rain to break the heat. I'm hopeful we'll see a big push by the tomatoes over the next few weeks. As the onions and garlic come to an end, I'm contemplating some major soil amendment out front.

Tomatoes, scapes, and Saskatoons

Jess and I took a short trip to Calgary this week, leaving Jennifer in charge of watering during a gruelling hot spell. We came back to find everything in intact, including the start of what looks like a great tomato harvest.

My plan this afternoon is to harvest the garlic scape to make pesto.

I dumped an old seed back I had into one of the back planters to see what came up. Answer: poppies.

We're just at the end or the peonies but these are being overtaken by daylilies. I still see some evidence of some kind of a disease in the daylilies (mostly swollen but stunted flower heads). I've been deadheading the diseased flower buds and, over the past two year, the incidence is way down.

We drove out to T&D's Saskatoons this afternoon to get four gallons of berries. The berries were amazing--they have really plumped up in the heat. Our own bushes need picking as well--maybe tonight after it rains. The robins have been in the trees each day getting their fill.

I cleaned the berries we picked and froze three-quarters for later jamming or use in baking. The rest we'll likely eat fresh with ice cream. If there enough left over, I might try wine making. The strawberry wine is cooking in the basement and smells amazing.

Now off to harvest some scapes.

Rhubarb, irises, and peonies

Good weather meant I got a touch behind in garden blogging this week. We had a wonderful father's day trip to Elk Island Park, with cycling, hiking, and kayaking.

We also did a lot of things this week. I sugared the rhubarb, then juiced it, and it is cooking away in the basement. 

We also wrapped up the chive vinegar experiment and bottled it. I used the remaining chive vinegar from last year to make some pink pickled eggs.

The strawberries have formed berries and I' just waiting for them to ripen. I'm hopeful we'll get out to Strawberry Creek Farm in the next few weeks so I can make jam and wine and pie filling. We're just about out of strawberry-rhubarb pie filling from last year!

The garden has been growing. I was thinning the beets and ran across this pineapple weed. I am waiting for this plant to get a bit bigger before harvesting the buds for salad.

The perennial flowers are also starting to bloom, including this daisy (which has seeded itself everywhere).

It is also iris season. It is a bit hard to capture the sheer number of irises that are blooming. There are ta least 500 flowers in the front and side yard. 

Working from home, I often get to listen to passersby during the (the windows bounce sound from the street into my office) and the front seems to be a ht. Shame it only lasts about 1o days. But man, is it amazing.

The vegetable garden that is in behind is starting to really take. The tomatillos are flowing and setting fruit alongside the pepper plant. The garlic are also doing well and the rest of the tomatoes seem to be pushing up (finally).

The violas have seeded themselves everywhere and I've now started to weed them out o the veggy beds when they get too close to the vegetables.

We're also awaiting the start of the peonies. The flower heads are full and the ants are all over them.

I got this shot after a shower. Not the best peony picture I've taken, but a nice one with the water and the sun.

I'm hoping to rack off the rhubarb wine this weekend and also do a later sowing of peas and bush beans (the corn bed was a bust). We should also be harvesting lettuce this weekend. And maybe gooseberries.

The end of spring flowers

We're coming t the end of the spring flower season. The barberry is in bloom as are the lilacs--and the neighbourhood smells wonderful.

Some of the perennials are also starting to put on a show. The phlox is blooming in the shade of the hedge (and everywhere else it has come up).

We had a day of rain this week, which was much needed. Jess and I used the day to make Christmas cake. The yard used the day to sprout dandelions.

It looks like we'll have a good crop of Saskatoons this year. The raspberries have also started to flower, which is promising.

The chickadees in our bird house seem to be fledging their young There are still lots of robins around, using the bird bath and sunning themselves on the window box.

After knocking down the grass and the weeds and putting in a second sowing of peas, I'm kind of pooped out. This weekend I plan to make some more chive vinegar (using what is left of last year's to pickle some eggs).

We also need to rack off the red wine kit we made. This will free up the fermenter to start on some rhubarb wine next weekend. The rhubarb needs another trimming tonight so I'll put some more in the freezer in anticipation. I wonder if any of my neighbours also have some to spare? I also see that the oregano is big enough to pick and start drying. Maybe tomorrow... .

Winter activities

Clearly gardening hasn't been high on my list of activities (it is winter in Edmonton, after all!).

One thing I have been doing is attending my community's gardening club's meetings. My interest is in the discussion around the possibility of a community garden. This seems quite exciting (although the approval process is daunting). 

I hosted our last meeting and the educational component was "things from the garden that I have fermented". Jennifer handled the pouring of the various drinks. The rhubarb wine was well received, the hard cider was deemed okay, and the apple jack was reviewed as "smells good". Which is pretty fair--apple jack has pretty intense flavours. Strawberry wine is on my list of summer projects.

For Christmas, I bought Jess some vanilla beans and vodka to make her own vanilla (she uses a lot while baking). She was very excited to get the 26er of vodka in her stocking. I sensed some disappointment with the vanilla beans.

Anyhow, we have cut the beans and they are soaking--this can apparently take up to six months to to get all of the flavour out of the beans but the initial (one month) results are very promising.

In the meantime, we have been trying to enjoy the good weather with skating, skiing and snow shoeing. The hoar-frost this week has been crazy beautiful.

I've also been cooking and trying to use up what we stored last summer and fall. Above I included some oven-dried tomatoes and much of a bottle of rhubarb wine in a risotto, to rave reviews.

Pre-Christmas fun

Were still waiting for the first major snow of the winter but pre-Christmas stuff is underway! Jess has been baking-and-freezing for a few weeks so we're ready to go.

Last weekend we took in a street festival on 124th street and I bottle the rhubarb wine It has been aging about four months in bulk and is quite nice. I don't really care for white wine (I was mostly keen to experiment with wine making from scratch) but this turned out nicely. A bit sweet (I might have been a day or two early killing the ferment) and lower in alcohol than the reds I've made. But very drinkable.

I also hauled the blackberries I'd hoarded all summer out of the freezer and made jam. This was our first year with enough blackberries from the bush to bother with. The jam turned out very nice with a much richer and sweeter flavour than raspberry jam (my first thought was  "jollyrancher!"). Hopefully the bush is mature enough to give us crops in subsequent years--it certainly started suckering a bit this year.

We spent today decorating the house for the holidays.

As I'm making a pre-Christmas run to Calgary this week, I also put together some Christmas packages. This meant pulling the fruitcake out of the cupboard and packaging it. It had quite a lot of rum in it (I may need a nap...).

The lengthy fall means we've basically finished all of the outdoor tasks for the season and even put everything away before the snow! I am hopeful we'll be able to ski and skate soon!