Monday, July 21, 2025

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.

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