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.)

GLACIER NP–PART TWO

16 Thursday Sep 2010

Posted by backyardnotes in Montana, National Parks, Travel, Uncategorized

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GOING TO THE SUN ROAD is a must do and see part of Glacier NP. It may be traveled from west to east or from east to west. From the west entrance the road moves east along Lake McDonald and its source McDonald Creek, above (and below) before climbing up nearly 3,000 vertical feet to the summit at Logan Pass.

The arresting color of this pooling spot on McDonald Creek was a peaceful place to stop and enjoy a little lunch before moving on along the GTSR. We have noticed that many visitors tend to race through the national park(s), stopping only for the ‘Kodak’ moments before jumping back into their cars and then onto the next one, rarely taking time to really see and hear what makes these parks so special and it’s a shame. There are so many places to pull out and take a short walk or a long hike and see what cannot be seen from the side of the road.

The views here are spectacular wherever you turn and none more so than the first glimpse of that road as it hugs the face of those peaks soaring above. Note the tiny vehicles for comparison at the bottom of the photo!

By the time we started up the GTSR the rain and clouds that we left behind at Bowman Lake had caught up to us. As the clouds moved up and east they draped over the mountain tops and peaks to dramatic effect. A bit gloomy for photographing with my limited camera, but not too bad. The photo above looks back down into the valley that we had just come from. This road, completed in 1932 seems to require continued maintenance and reconstruction and it is a narrow (maximum vehicle width is 8 feet), winding. Luckily for us we got an early start and the weather for a Sunday was not optimal so there was little traffic in the eastbound direction.

A little to the left of center in the distance is a waterfall dropping from a hanging valley. One of many along this road.

Still climbing to Logan Pass.

The east crest of the summit at Logan Pass, elevation 6,646 feet. You can see the road along the face of the mountains in the distance–just a slim little ribbon that we traveled.

At the east end of the road is St. Mary Lake, where we pulled out to look back into the mountains we had just crossed. It was a dark and stormy day…

But, just turning around to my right was East Flattop Mountain and the promise of breaking clouds, blue sky and sunshine to the east and south. And, to paraphrase Cormac McCarthy, we went on.

One more part to the saga and then it’s back to the garden and perhaps one last national park trip as summer comes to a close.

EXPLORING NW MONTANA & GLACIER NP – PART ONE

16 Thursday Sep 2010

Posted by backyardnotes in Montana, National Parks, Travel, Wildflowers

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OUR FIRST NIGHT IN MONTANA was spent along the Kootenai River at the USFS Yak Campground. There is a campground on each side of the Yaak where it meets the Kootenai. We left Seattle at 10:00 a.m. on 8/16 and arrived at our campground at 6:15 p.m. (MDT). Just before arriving at this CG we were looking for another one that showed on our map but all we could find at this location was a group of turkeys!

Since this blog is ostensibly about botanical things, I spotted this perfect seedhead (tragopogon lamottei?),–not yet identified with certainty– a globe of fairies waiting to lift off.

A Sunny little patch of gallardia pinnifolia (I think) along the riverbank.

Day two,east toward Libby, MT and a stop at Kootenai Falls, a majestic drop of waterfalls along the Kootenai River. Unlike any other waterfalls we’ve seen in our travels. To get a sense of the power and breadth I’m including the following series of photographs.We had the place to ourselves this time for about an hour. The rush of water through here is incredible!

The ‘top end’ of the falls

The ‘bottom end’ as the river flows northeast on its way to Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho. It is a fabulous stop that we could never tire of seeing.

On day three we made the west entrance to Glacier NP and by 1:00 p.m. we were at Bowman Lake CG, thirty miles north of the west entrance. A beautiful six mile long mountain lake between Numa and Cerulean ridges and six mountain peaks that overlook the lake. This beautifully located campground was never full in the four nights we stayed. The lake was the perfect spot to camp for several days and try out our inflatable tandem kayak and take some short hikes.

Beautiful Bowman Lake.

The best way to collect rocks in a national park–photographs! A lot of red rock here and in Lake McDonald at the west entrance.

On a hike along the lake we spotted the following butterflies, beetles, assorted wildflowers, and plants.

A Blue Copper butterfly.

Coronis frittilary, I think.

And a Green Comma. A good site for identification of things living is DiscoverLife.

This is spirea pyrimidata with a checkered beetle and a mating pair flower longhorn beetles. Many thanks to the Bugman at Whats’sThatBug for helping me to identify the beetles! (See link at right)

There was so much to see here and great opportunities for seeing what is still wild and untrammeled. So let’s break here before continuing on to the Going-to-the-Sun-Road and parts east and south and another slew of photos to scroll through.

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.