Garlic, tulips and cherries

Fall is well underway, with the leaves finally starting to come down. I was out for a walk at noon and saw some ice building up on a local fountain (water shoots up from four corners into central bowl).

Jess and I have been busy with yard work, although the cold weather has dampened our enthusiasm. Last night we put six heads of garlic into the ground for spring and also 40 tulip bulbs. We still have another 20 or so to go. You can see the ongoing sidewalk replacement behind Jess (week two without a driveway...).

I also shucked the last of the beans from their shells. These are scarlet runner beans that I'm saving for next year (or the year after).

Tonight we went out and plunked in an Evans cherry that my friend Marc gave me. I'm quite excited by this very generous gift--we've picked other people's cherry trees in the past and the resulting pie is great!

Tomorrow I will be lifting and re-laying some of the cobbles on the front walk. The city is supposed to come and fix this (part of the clean up of the sidewalk work) but based on where they are at, they likely won't be back before the snow.

Potato harvest

We harvested the rest of the potato beds out from today. These are a mix of yukon gold and pontiac reds. We also hauled out some burbank russets and some banana fingerlings--about 10 gallons in all from three 10-foot rows.

Jess contributed small hands and good eyesight while I did the heavy spading. The sod that is underneath the dirt has really started to rot nicely and I expect we could plant carrots out here next year without any trouble. Just a matter of smoothing out the rows and maybe dropping some lime and bone meal in.

The processing job is mostly done. I'm going to let the potatoes dry overnight before sorting them into keepers and users and next year's seed. Very little rust on these (the yukon gold are particularly free of spots) so mostly looking for size and shape.

While there are still some beets and carrots out back (and maybe even some more potatoes behind the garage--arrrgh), I'm too bushed to deal with them today. The weather looks good next weekend so they can wait some more. A bike ride and a hike through the valley are in order while the leaves are still pretty.

I see we also have tomatoes to process again. I wonder if i can sub this job out to the girl? I should probably also empty the rain barrel before things get too cold!

Caragana seeds?

The last few days have been lovely ones for a walk in the valley as the leaves start to change. Te key has also been amazing a blue.

The valley smells like autumn, including high bush cranberries. These aren't on my foraging list this year (as no one liked me cranberry jelly a few years back).

But something I have run across are that caragana seeds are edible. I knew the blossoms were edible (taste like peas) but the seedpods you hear cracking on the late summer heat contain edible seeds. They are small and hard. They soften after a minute in you mouth and taste like a legume. They'd likely be best boiled in a change of water. Fortunately caragana are plentiful as you'd need to collect a lot to make a meal!

Autumn is also the time to spot next year's wild asparagus plants as their foliage turns a beautiful golden colour.

I went out and cut down most of the remaining rhubarb last night. I've been meaning to make a drink out of it and maple syrup. Boiled, strained, added a bit of lemon and am chilling in the fridge. I would think a bit of water and sugar will be necessary but tastes lemon-aide-like.

The bleeding tomatoes are again demanding attention as the ripening continue. Some will go into a salad tonight. I will maybe try some salsa recipes this weekend.

Freezing tomatoes and carrots

The tomato onslaught in waining but still requires periodic attention. Today I turned yet another tray into sauce to freeze.

The tomato press I got for my birthday is a hoot to use and takes so much of the hand-labour out of the processing. Grind, dump in crock pot, let cook down and freeze. What a treat!

While I did spend much of the afternoon on the deck with a book (fiction no less!) I also pulled out half a row of carrots, blanched and froze about 18 cups for winter soups and stews. There is still quite a bunch in the yard but the weather looks fine so they can wait.

Tonight I hope to get a walk or bike ride in. Groat Road reopened at some point which is a nice climb to finish my bike ride with (easier on my knees than the Ramsay Ravine).

Storing beets and carrots for seed

I've been planning on storing some carrots and beets over the winter in order to try and grow some seed next year. Last year I tried to overwinter them in the ground but they rotted (leaving curious cylindrical holes in the garden).

This year I'm going to try storing them in the basement in damp sand. I selected a bunch of golden beets as well as some yellow stone carrots. Since I was short on golden beets, I decided to also throw in some other beets to see if different types stored differently.

The trick seems to be using big, clean veggies, cutting off the greenery and then packing them in damp (but not wet) sand so they don't touch. Big was no problem. The Yellowstone carrots often grow to 10 inches or more (like the one above).

I put a bit of sand in the bottom, plunked them in, filled with more sand and done. I fit about 17 really big carrots in which should be enough to get at least one batch of decent seed next year. I layered the beets. Two 12 litres (2.5 gallon) pails needed almost 50lbs of sand for fill. I'll try to remember to report the results come spring.

I also racked off both carboys of cider to let them bulk age. The one sweetened with honey had a much longer ferment than the one sweetened with white sugar. If I have the gas, I'll start cleaning up the yard and putting some lyme and bone meal in the beds this afternoon.

Tomatoes, potatoes and corn

I had a busy birthday weekend with house guests and whatnot. We took a trip out to Wabamun and I ran across a bunch of huge hawthorne bushes (tree sized) at the provincial campground.

Back home, the tomatoes are ripening in big batches, which are vastly greater than we can eat or give away. Fortunately, Jenn was at Lee Valley...

And I'm now the proud owner of a tomato grinder. I was skeptical this would work but it was pretty slip and managed to reduce a bunch of blanched tomatoes to 4 litres of juice and pulp and separate the seeds and skin out in about 5 minutes.

It was also much sturdier than I expected when I looked at the box. We now have a bunch of juice cooking down into sauce in the crockpot that we'll freeze. I (more virtuously than thou) turned the tomato "waste" into soup stock for the week.

Jess and I then went and picked the corn out front. Not a huge haul but a fun bit of stunt gardening.

Then we dug two small rows of potatoes. I'm holding a blue caribe and there are red pontiac and yellow banana fingerlings in behind. With a return to warm weather, I have some yard clean up to do this week.

Apple sauce, snow and tomatoes

Recognizing that the weather is cooling and that this coming week is crazy for Jennifer and me at work, I decided to spend Sunday processing veggies. We picked our last apple tree of the year (I hope!) Saturday night and I started saucing about 9 am.

Eighteen litres later, we had finished with about half the apples (remainder above). Jenn then turned the ripe tomatoes on the window sill into sauce (which we froze) and we sat down to dinner as the rain started. I went out to fiddle with the dehydrator on the back deck, noticed the cold and checked the weather.

After some handwringing, I decided we needed to pull the pin on the tomatoes because of the risk of frost. I pretty much let the plants do what they wanted this summer instead of pruning and tying them up and we had a lot of bushy plants. In the rain and twilight, we started picking. And picking. Then got more buckets and picked some more.

We ended up with 10+ gallons (and we've been picking non-stop for a month). Above you can see about 35% of the haul. Because of the mud, we ended up washing them all last night and then employed every container we could find (e.g., roasting plans, boxes, baking sheets) to house them in piles two deep on the window sills.

There are well over 1000--which future Bob is going to have to deal with when they start to ripen. Man, is he gonna be pissed at me... . It did snow last night (mostly melted) so I think we made the right choice in the end. Not sure what the beans, corn and squash will look like when it warms up today.

The good news is that the canning closet is starting to look pretty full. I have adjusted quantities based on what we used and didn't use last winter and it feels pretty good. I will spend lunch maybe making more dried apple rings and racking off the first batch of cider.