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!

Sugar beets, cider vinegar and tree removal

With snow predicted for tomorrow, it has been a busy day in the yard. I finally pulled the sugar beets from behind the garage. I got a pretty good haul from a 6x3' bed. Maybe 25 pounds?

The beets had quite a range of sizes. This is the largest (for scale, span of my thumb to pinky is 9 inches) and they few I have sampled are nice and sweet. My plan is to cook these down tomorrow while snow falls outside. I think this is the last of the produce, although I saw three stray beets in one of the beds while I was raking leaves.

We've been smelling the surplus apple cider turn to vinegar this week and we finally have some mother of vinegar forming on the top of both jars. I'm quite keen for this to work and perhaps sacrifice some of my surplus home-made wine to a similar process.

This morning the tree cutters arrived to take out the diseased mountain ash that used to reside to the left of the sidewalk. I was sad to see the tree go and it really changes the complexion of the front yard. We'll be growing corn and pumpkins on the left and potatoes on the right. I may also drop a cherry bush or two into the hedge (which is cotoneaster and suffers from rust).

While the tree guys were chopping, I was electrifying the Xmas lights and I think we're basically good to go. I still have some lime and bone meal to spread on the beds before dark so back out I go after a cup of coffee.

Late season fruit

With winter approaching, we've been trying to tidy up the yard: emptying the water barrels, amending the beds for next spring and putting up the rest of the Christmas lights. As I've been tramping about, there have been a couple of late surprises.

The strawberry plants responded to late watering and have been flowering and fruiting despite the frost. These fellows are up about 12 inches off the ground and near a stone wall, so they may get some heat and wind shelter. A fun late-season treat.

Out front, the thornless blackberries once again almost got to ripeness. The one berry I atet his year was tasty but again a hard frost has ruined the immature berries. I think these plants, while cold hardy, just requires too many days to mature.

We still have some carrots to pull from a raised bed, a couple of beds to dig and amend, and some general tidying. But I think we're basically ready for winter. Inside, we're happily cooking up the summer's harvest and I have a pumpkin from the market to process this weekend for muffins all winter long. But now I'm off to rake the rest of the leaves up onto the perennials for the winter and maybe get a bike ride in.

Apples and garden bed improvements

Things have started to slow right down in the garden. We're still harvesting tomatoes, carrots and cucumbers but the rest of the plants have pretty much packed it in. We're expecting a hard frost in two or three days so that should leave us with only carrots (plus a window sill of tomatoes). I finally picked the apples this past week. The three we got this year drives the per-apple price somewhere below $25 each (!) and I will give the tree a gentle prune come spring. You  can see the hail damage everything took in August on the left-most apple.

Most of my efforts have been in improving the garden beds for next year. This year's potato bed (below) will have beans, onions, lettuces and more beans next year. It has been dug again (trying to fix years of neglect and compaction) and more leaves, bone meal and lime added. I think this is bed is pretty much left to be gently tilled on the top from now on.

This year's project (below) is also getting a second digging with more organize matter, bone meal, lime and some sheep manure added. The snaking bed on the foreground will be next year's potato bed. In behind, there is huge bed (block by the suckering shrub on the left). I'm thinking beets and yellow beans and perhaps celery. I finished all but about 5 linear feet of work on it today (the celery and cucumbers are still going).

On the south side of the house we have two smaller raised beds for cold frames. I have the wood for one frame cut and will cut the other tomorrow and screw them together. These are 2x4 (ish) and the glass I have should sit neatly on top. I'll be planting garlic in the left bed this fall and seeding carrots in the right bed come spring.

I have two others frames ready to go as well. These sit in the death bed, where even day-lilies and irises struggle. The glass nests into the raised frame and these will have lettuce and carrots next spring.

I have quite a bit of work to do on five raised beds in the back but that will have to wait for next weekend. I also have some more Christmas lights to put up, having strung lights in the big tree with Jess this week. Dinner tonight is borsch and baked potatoes--almost everything being from the garden.

Cold frame update

I decided to actually take my lunch hour today and spent it outside enjoying the warmth. I finished taking down the Christmas lights (excepting the tree which requires the ladder) and then poked around the garden some.

Behind the garage, two of the raised bed are free of snow. The raised beds further south (with no bounce off the garage) are still ice covered. Looking at the soil, I ran across the first growing thing of the year--a weed, which I promptly pulled. How I have missed setting order to nature!

The make-shift cold frame I built on the south side of the house seems to be working. The raised beds in the back yard are still frozen (although most of the snow is gone). By contrast, the soil in the cold frame is thawed as far as I could push this trowel in (maybe 6 inches before I lost leverage) and reasonably warm to handle. I'd say we're some time way from planting in the cold frame but this is encouraging!

I also see that the bunnies have kindly been fertilizing the other beds over the winter.

In the basement, the tomato seeds have not yet germinated (which is expected) but the rest of the seeds appear to have and are putting on a good show. I expect to pick up our bikes from their winter tune this week and then we'll see what is happening around the neighborhood.

Happy Holidays

We've been busy skating, baking and enjoying the remains of the summer harvest (strawberry-rhubarb pie last nights).

Here's a quick snap of the legislature all lit up this evening. A lovely evening at +4 walking among the lights.

Christmas lights

With the snow finally here, I'm excited that Jess is now old enough to shovel snow! Although her enthusiasm has waned now taht the temp has dropped below -20... .



We were also featured in the Edmonton Journal in a piece about folks who put up their Christmas lights early.

Gardening in the winter

With the summer garden wrapped up, I've put the finishing touches on my winter gardening--Christmas lights. Jess and I strung up the lights in the trees as well as the easy lights on the house and garage on the weekend.

Earlier, I had done the higher lights that required ladder work.

We also then put up the rabbit fences around the fruit trees. This has become necessary over the past few years to save the bark. The fence is fairly ugly but is lower maintenance (and quieter) than penning a coyote in the yard all winter.

We'll test the lights tonight (I connected everything today at lunch--I think!) and then give them a show for Hallowe'en. I presume there will be some swearing and ladder work required tomorrow. I'll post pictures when I get a good one.

We've had some lovely late-season leaves on the columnar swedish aspens.