DOING THE APPLE CAN CAN!

09 Saturday Oct 2010

Posted by backyardnotes in Canning & Preserving, Jellies & Preserves, Vegetable garden

LAST WEEKEND I finished picking the all of the Spartan apples, fourteen pounds in all. Our little tree produced a total of thirty-two pounds of apples this year. So, what to do with them all? Most of the Akanes went to applesauce.

On Tuesday, five pounds of Spartans became seventeen half-pints of Apple Chutney.

On Wednesday, another five pounds were turned into eleven half-pints of Brandied Apple Preserves with dried cherries and ginger; a variation on Jam Lady’s Apple Maple Preserves. Delete the maple syrup, replace with brandy and add dried cherries and fresh ginger. Kind of like concentrated, spicy, apple pie filling; should mellow out in a couple of months. And I still have four and one-half pounds of Akanes and Spartans in the fridge! Some apple turnovers for the freezer, maybe.

And yesterday I picked the last head of Graffiti cauliflower (two pounds trimmed florets) to make five pints of purple pickled cauliflower, using red onions and red wine vinegar to preserve the purple-red color. It looks beautiful in the jars!

I think I am ready to give the canner a little rest until I have nothing but green tomatoes to turn into pickles or relish or salsa. I think there will be enough ripe ones to pick over the weekend to make sauce for the freezer. And that’s enough for this week!

RETURN FROM THE LAND OF GIANTS

02 Saturday Oct 2010

Posted by backyardnotes in Canning & Preserving, National Parks, Travel, Vegetable garden

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WE SPENT LAST WEEK AMONG GIANTS IN KINGS CANYON AND SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARKS (that’s the General Grant sequoia above in Kings Canyon NP) and returned home to a few giants in the vegetable garden like a four pound head of broccoli (below).

The variety is Marathon (seed from Johnny’s); I have grown it for many years. A few years back, I grew a head that weighed nearly five pounds!

WE MARKED THE PASSING OF SUMMER and the beginning of fall in Kings Canyon NP with a hike up to Cedar Grove Overlook. Unfortunately the view at 6,000 feet was very smokey to the south, west and east. To the north we were able to see the Monarch Divide. Warm days and cool nights.

This time of the year has a certain cool thread running through even a warm day and the lower inclination of the sun intensifies the color of pink flowers. The afternoon we came home the sky was lightly clouded and the pink of the Nerine lilies and Autum Joy sedum seemed to sing.

The anticipation of returning home is like a package waiting to be unwrapped. I always wonder what awaits in the garden after an absence of a week or longer. Our return on Tuesday did not disappoint— there was plenty to harvest in the vegetable garden. All of the cool weather here has been ideal for the brassicas but also just enough warmth for the tomatoes to continue ripening. The peppers are dismal this year and the pears too.

Here is what I picked on Wednesday.

The squash vines had pretty much withered, so the Buttercup and Delicata squashes came out of the garden and some of the zucchini that I did not pick before our trip managed to stay on the small side. I have grown the Costata Romanesco variety the last few years. The plants are large and the dark green ribbed fruits are firm, sweet, and crisp. I have two plants this year and try to keep them picked at under ten inches long.

Still needed to pick are a couple of heads of Graffiti cauliflower, below. I may pickle them for the novelty of color (they will be kind of purple after cooking). Regardless, the color is joyful.

The day before we left I turned twelve pounds of Akane apples into sauce (six pints), had another go at pickled green tomatoes (they were quite soft last year, but tasted great) enough to fill five pint jars and pickled three pints of dilled green beans.

Yesterday I put up eleven half-pints of Tomatillo Salsa from tomatillos purchased in California and three pints of bread and butter style zucchini pickles. This weekend I will deal with the Spartan apples. Hmmmmm, preserves or chutney?
Part of the fun of canning for me is designing the labels. I take a photo of the fruit or vegetable that will be going into the jar so I can incorporate it into the design. I print 2 inch and 2.5 inch labels on an Epson Photo2400. Here are some of the labels designed so far this year. (A bit of showing off.) My brand is Backyard Farm and I make a notation of where the contents are grown (by me or someone/somewhere else). (None of these items are for sale of course, just personal use and to give as gifts. I will, however entertain label design commissions.)

CHASING SUMMER’S END

09 Thursday Sep 2010

Posted by backyardnotes in Canning & Preserving, Peppers, Summer!, Tomatoes, Vegetable garden

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BY LATE AUGUST IT ALWAYS FEELS LIKE I AM CHASING SUMMER’S END, wishing for the prolonged hours of summer daylight and mourning the darkening dawns as we move towards falls’ shorter days. There are still bright spots of color in the garden, the canning of summer fruit, anticipating the bounties from my vegetable garden, and the joys of more travel to look forward to.

Seems like I barely settled in from our return from Glacier NP and September has arrived! We returned home from GNP on August 27th and the days after our return were spent canning peaches with one of my daughters and then preparing for our 19th Annual Farewell to Summer party that happens the day before Labor Day.

On our way home from Montana we stopped at two fruit stands at Thorp, just west of Ellensburg (WA) where I bought twenty-four pounds of peaches for $7.50! (Last year I bought very large nectarines for the same price.) Noel and I canned seventeen pints of peaches and I put up another five pints of brandied peaches and four saucy half-pints of what I am calling ice cream peaches. I also bought some Ginger Gold apples (a happy result of hurricane Camille). To me they taste like the best Golden Delicious I could imagine. Very tart, refreshing taste and a good bite.

Time for a little celebration of what is happening in the garden now. Most of the showiest flowers in the garden have shed their pretty petals and the vegetable garden and changing leaves get to shine.

How about celebrating the first bowl of tomatoes picked yesterday?

New Mexico/Anaheim type chile peppers.

The heavily fruited espaliered apple; Akane and Spartan varieties. They are ripening nicely and ready to pick. Unfortunately many of the top tier apples (Akane) are infested with the apple maggots. They are crisp and tart with a sweet note. Last year the apples were few in number, mostly due, I think to the weather at bloom time, which was cold and rainy–and bees aren’t in the mood to do their job the rain and cold. This year we had lovely weather for more than a week when the apple tree blossomed-hurray!

The Spartan apples, larger than the Akane variety.

A buttercup squash from seed that was probably ten years old. I ended up with two plants that are roaming freely through the garden.

I picked this head of Umpqua broccoli last week.

The blossom of eggplant Orient Express and the long, slender fruit below.

Perfect and near perfect Golden Ball turnips. Sweet and tasty!

I think this sunflower (helianthus annus) is Red Sun.

The savoy cabbage is growing nicely with a head of chicory ‘Galia’ peeking out from behind. Last summer I let a head of ‘Galia’ go to seed and this past spring and summer volunteers have sprouted and I have replanted them throughout the vegetable garden. Lazy gardening.

I love this tangle of squash vines. (Little chicory starts in the background.)

Nothing gives a sunny farewell to the end of summer like a sunflower.

EASTSIDE, WESTSIDE

12 Thursday Aug 2010

Posted by backyardnotes in Canning & Preserving, Jams, Jellies & Preserves, Summer!, The beach, Washington travels

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apples, cherries, clouds

The view east, after crossing Washington Pass.

WE LEFT THE COOL, CLOUDY WEST SIDE OF THE CASCADES BEHIND at the end of July and were greeted with warmth and mostly clear skies as we drove across the North Cascades Highway. We spent our first night below Washington Pass at Lone Fir (USFS) campground along Early Winters Creek.

A very unusual pink sunset made for striking silhouttes overhead.

Next morning we took two hikes, a three mile from the campground and another three mile one farther east off of Hwy 20 to Cedar Creek Falls. The second hike was too close to noon and hot, hot, hot. The saving grace was the ability to refresh ourselves in a pool above the falls.

After our hike to Cedar Falls we headed toward Bridgeport State Park on the Columbia River; nice park but full up in the middle of summer. Same story at Alta Lake so we headed for our friend’s place on Lake Chelan a day early. HOT! 98° at 5:00 p.m. Automatic dive-in-the-lake temperature!

We saw fantastic cloud formations that evening and over the next few days, along with plenty of smoke blowing down lake from the Rainbow Bridge fire just above Stehekin at the north end of the lake. Very colorful sunsets, blood-red moon and sunrises, too.

This cloud was a precursor to a wild three hour lightning and thunderstorm on Saturday afternoon that dumped plenty of rain and cleared the air of smoke for the rest of the day and into Sunday. The rain also helped to slow down the fire, thankfully. (Here is a useful fire tracking site for western states: inciweb.org)

Before leaving Chelan for home on Monday morning, we stopped and bought some beautiful local Lodi apples (10# box), melons, tomatoes, and bing cherries (4#).

The apples became Apple-Maple Preserves (from the Jamlady Cookbook); quite delicious spooned over plain yogurt.

Cherries in Wine (from Well Preserved).

After a few days at home we headed west to Ocean Park at the edge of the Pacific Ocean to visit Renée and friends; cool, cloudy, and drizzly weather. Talk about contrasts in temperature! Sunday turned out to be lovely and warm.

Always carry the camera—you never know what you will find. Pristine gull feathers, a necklace of orange seaweed or a pair of Bald Eagles perched above the beach.

RED PLUMS AND SUNSETS

21 Wednesday Jul 2010

Posted by backyardnotes in Canning & Preserving, Jellies & Preserves, Roses, Sunset

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DESPITE THE MORNING MARINE LAYER that has greeted us the last four or five days, the afternoons turned sunny and last night’s sunset was quite lovely. I especially love the way the blooms of Altissimo were lit up when viewed from behind. I could not resist trying to capture the glow.

TUESDAY AFTERNOON I went to my friend Don’s and took him up on his offer of red plums. In exchange, he’ll receive some plum preserves. Don has a very efficient method of harvest: shake the branches and the ripe ones fall to the ground. No ladder climbing. I brought home eleven pounds!

Yesterday I made preserves and jelly. Half of the plums went to juice for jelly and the others became plum preserves. From eleven pounds of plums I put up ten half-pints of jelly, eight half-pints of preserves and three half-pints of syrup from the leftover juice.

In 2005 we went to Chicago and then onto Milan, Illinois to visit Tom’s cousin and her husband. We went with them to visit the John Deere Museum in the Quad Cities and in the gift shop I found a great book about putting up jams and jellies. Even though the author weirdly refers to herself in the third person, The Jamlady Cookbook is well researched and written and has a great variety of recipes for just about every fruit and fruit combination you never considered. The book is full of the technical information that makes canning possible and I highly recommend this book if you have a serious interest in jams, jellies and preserves. The other go-to book is the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. I finally replaced my thirty-five year old copy with a new and updated edition last summer. It is greatly expanded with a contemporary take on preserving and canning recipes. Another must-have book.