The heat has pushed forward the harvest some. I pickled a bunch of beets yesterday with some garlic scapes. I'm the only one who likes pickled beets so one batch is usually enough and since it is just me, I added the garlic. Pickling also thinned out the beets enough that the later sowing have some room to grow. We're also drying some more basil and beet leaves for the winter.
The sunflowers out front are attracting lots of bees. And they are also giving the pole beans something to grow on while the corn catches up to them.
We're also harvesting the first of the cherry tomatoes from the window boxes. The plants that are in the ground are behind but are insane loaded with tomatoes.
And the raspberry canes out front are also producing. The most successful canes are the black raspberries. These have a richer taste than the traditional reds but came at the cost of horrendous injuries. I don't let Jess pick these anymore as there are thorns everywhere (click on the picture above and look at the cane).
While our efforts to expand the raspberry patch are showing some signs of success, we're likely off to Roy's Raspberries in the next week for four pails with which to make jam.
I ripped our black raspberries out because the pain was so horrid. I felt like I needed a suit of armour to pick them! Lethal plants, they are...
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've thought about that. But they are one of the most productive raspberry plants I have! And the keep the kids from stealing berries... :)
ReplyDeleteI had lots of success with berries this weekend and last. Several pounds of raspberries, red currants. and even a few saskatoons and cherries (Cherries? where did those come from!?).
ReplyDeleteAs I spent my Saturday afternoon picking berries, I thought of how much I envied you getting your daughter involved in your gardening. Admittedly, this was my first garden, and Aiden is only six, but I only seemed to be able to hold his attention for about 15 minutes or so (although, he is a much bigger help in the kitchen...)
Sounds like a good weekend! Foraging by the roadside? Jess is almost 11 and still has only a limited attention span. Last night we dug potatoes and that was cool but she bailed out before I finished washing them all. I'd say jobs that are less than 45 minutes and have clearly defined tasks and end points tend to be most successful for us. Of course, somedays I find her wandering the garden weeding on her own, so what do I know. 15 minutes at six sounds pretty good!
ReplyDeleteI'm renting an old farmhouse right now, so the currants and raspberries have been there for years. The saskatoons are at the end of our driveway.
ReplyDeleteThe cherry is weird - it is next to the garden fence, so it definitely wasn't planted there on purpose, but it is not a native plant. I think it's sweet cherry. It must have grown from a seed dropped by a bird or some other animal.