Still about the Fruit

In July, I wrote about how it is all about the fruit in my yard right now.  Well, it is three weeks later, and it is still all about the fruit.  And also the house painting.  But mostly the fruit.

After we finished painting the house this afternoon, we took a well deserved break.  I spent time in the hammock, and Mike sat beside me in the shade playing guitar.  Cue my bad habit - one that my mother and I share. Really it is a trait that might be good or might be bad, depending.

I am looking at the yard and thinking about how happy I am.  Then I see another apple fall off the tree, apparently as the result of nothing in particular. 20 minutes later I am handing Mike a massive wicker basket of apples after having picked four other ice cream containers full.  We already have three large ziplocs frozen down and have made apple sauce once.  Next our relaxing time is used with making apple sauce, drying apples in the dryer, and baking fruit compote. I have barely picked 1/4 of our apples to date so this insanity will happen over and over.

Today we rearranged the freezer to prepare for more apples and the cherries we will pick soon.  So Mike knew what he was saying when he innocently suggested that perhaps some of the apples could fall without us doing much beyond tossing them into the ferns. He had already canned 5 quarts of apple sauce when he commented, but I still gave him a black look.  No one gets between a James girl and potential fruit without collateral damage.

I felt this same way visiting Teela last week, even when it wasn't my garden and even when it was just tomatoes, which do not count as real fruit in the James girl lexicon.  She has a large garden in Virginia, and it has a number of volunteer cherry tomatoes. Teela doesn't like to limit the choices of anyone (which includes tomatoes), so she let them live while she weeded out not fruit bearing weeds. As a result, she has a lot of tomatoes.  We picked at least 4 cups of cherry tomatoes every time we went to her garden (every second day).  She doesn't eat tomatoes and Peff was out of the town.  The kids eat a few.  Teela also had her own beef steak tomatoes as well, many of which get slashed by crows and need to used right away to prevent rotting.  I was obsessed with how all those tomatoes could be used no tomatoes were wasted.  Even when there were clearly too many and I don't love them.  I know it is not quite sane...

Mike is in for a long couple years. Especially when the kids leave home but all the fruit keeps producing more. It will still be about the fruit.

On the upside, we've all been enjoying wonderful garden based meals everyday since I got home and Mike is happy to be off bachelor food (which appears to be veggie hot dogs, pizza and a variety of non-meals like crackers.  He has already had tomato/basil pasta, lentil soup with fresh tomatoes, fresh salsa and bruschetta, apple pie and roasted new root veggies like potatoes, carrots and beets with chard. It will be long years, but with good food.  Really that's what James girls are all about.  We have many projects, but you eat well.

Summer Projects

I love the opportunity to putter around the yard in the summer for lots of reasons, but my two favourite are picking fresh foods to eat and doing summer projects.  This year, they have intersected in Mike's summer kitchen.

Summer Kitchen
We went to Gus and Greta's in early July, and while we were there, we saw their summer kitchen. They have an outside table, and a grill, burners and an oven.  They also have a covered area where they can eat.  The covered area is less important here, where if it is raining it is usually cool enough to cook inside.  However, we were generally inspired by their ability to be outside so much, and Mike decided he needed a kitchen, too.

We have toyed with the idea of building a cob over or buying a pizza over for years. We liked the idea of being able to make pizza at the right temperature, and liked the idea of baking outside in the summer.  We've thought about building an outdoor kitchen a number of times, but just not acted because we were waiting to decide with option to do.  Then I found a pizza oven at Canadian Tire. Alton Brown might have called it a uni-tasker, but Mike already has it doing nan, bannock and breakfast scones.  As soon as we knew we have the oven solution (and at a fraction of the cost of the other options), Mike wanted to build a kitchen to go with it.

Last week during Mike's off days, we got most of the way finished the construction of the kitchen.  We still need to mount the hose sink and put up the trellis, but it is perfectly functional already.  It has a pizza oven, BBQ and a large cedar L shaped counter.  I like a lot of the details like the hanging utensils, the covered storage and the copper sink. I'll post pictures when the sink is done.

We've been using the cooking area a lot for cutting things, making pizza and flat bread, and serving.  It will be even better for me when I wash veggies out there and I have completed the compost area.

Picking Fresh Foods
This week the garden in in full swing.  I have been picking a lot of peas, beets, beans and cucumber, and we've been enjoying cherries, strawberries, raspberries, and saskatoons as well.  Sunday we went to a U-Pick to get saskatoons.  My usual place doesn't have them anymore, but Moon River was a great place to pick and the prices were reasonable.  They were shocked how quickly we picked 6 pails, but they didn't expect Leo and Anwyn to pick any because they are teenagers.

I have been making lots with our fresh veggies, including stir fry, many salads and bruschetta. I also love fruit salads, crisp, and fresh salsa's.  Mike has been pickling and making yogurt to eat with all the fresh fruit and sauces. We are having a picnic at the river today at lunch and we are eating fresh bruschetta and nachos, devilled eggs, cherries and bean salad - all made fresh with our food.

My side bed has been doing well, but I am growing cauliflower and broccoli for the first time and they have both gone to seed. My kohlrabi and greens are doing well in the same bed, though. I'll need to pay closer attention in the future.

Rainy day lull

It was a late spring, and the last week has been a hard one. Lilah has been very sick, and the human parts of the family have been, too. I was home two days last week, and Mike and Anwyn were each home three. Leo is just getting sick now.  In the midst of all that mucous and vomit, it has rained.  In the last two weeks, there have only been two days where it didn't rain most of the day. When you are sick, though, it doesn't mater as much that you are housebound.



The rain has slowed garden production, which means it is the right pace for my ill family. The asparagus just finished, and we have been eating herbs and a variety of greens for a couple of weeks. Mike ate one cherry tomato today and I made a nice brochette with the fresh basil yesterday. The big star, however, is the flowers.

It was a hard winter and I lost some perennials.  Because things were late, however, my tulips, narcissus, flox, iris, chives, anemone, and lily-of-the-valley are all blooming at the same time (check out Mike's June album of garden pics to see all the purple and pink). The yard is a sea of pinks and purples and the rain has kept them all frozen together for a protracted period of time.  Mike and I look out our window in the rain and admire the view. Everything looks incredibly lush, and it is cool and humid.

In breaks in the rain in the last couple days (typically no more than 40 mins.) we go out and do a bit to try to keep the yard under control. Mowing, weeding the garden and picking rhubarb to freeze all occur in these little windows of time. That is also about right for sickness, as we need to recover for about 2 hours for each 1/2 hour slowly pushing the mower. As you might imagine, we've been mostly eating out of the freezer as no one was hungry and no one was well enough to cook except Leora, who is writing finals.

Today we finally felt well enough to make all our meals: blueberry pancakes in the am, veggie soup and rhubarb crisp for lunch, and a fresh garden salad for supper later tonight. My greens and brasicas (think cabbage and kohlrabi) are happily co-habitating in a square foot bed on the driveway that tolerates all the damp very well.

All things considered, the misfortune has fit together so well as to actually seem like a pleasant lull combined with feeling crummy.

Rich harvest

Living in Zone 2, sometimes it feels like you have barely any time to garden.  My entire frost free period is usually slightly longer than 4 months. I start eating fresh food in the second or third week on June with early spinach (frost hardy), and asparagus and strawberries (early perennials).

By the first week in August, though, I have a rich bounty of fruit, vegetables and herbs. So much so that I pick most days, and we eat fresh produce with most meals. Typically the fruit goes in baking and is eaten fresh on cereal or in yogurt. It is mostly breakfast and desert. My veggies are lunch and supper and I love the variety. My girls claim we rely to heavily on beans in the summer, and Mike asked this week how to cook a kohlrabi, so I suspect they get tired of the same fresh veggies all the time. I never do, though. The yard has such a rich harvest of food, fun and companionship. All summer long, it is my favorite room in the house.

Yesterday, Leora jumped on the trampoline (we traded Liz for the swing set until next summer) and Brad and Mike flew their hovercraft and joined her in archery. We sat out for meals and I read in the hammock. I made pie from fresh raspberries and Mike turned 8 cups of basil into pesto. We ate fresh carrots, zucchini and tomatoes, and used fresh herbs in every meal.

Today I was up early dropping Brad at the airport and I got some special time in the yard. I picked 8 ripe tomatoes (sounds like fresh pizza), 3 peppers, 3 cucumbers, 6 cups beans, 1 cup peas and some apples. Then I cut myself some flowers and enjoyed a cup of tea sitting in my recliner in the early sunshine. By lunch time, the yard was drying my laundry and I was doing some weeding.

One of my favorite things is thinking about what I can eat soon. My corn and beets are almost ready and I think I could steel some potatoes to go with them. My raspberries will probably finish soon, but my strawberries and apples are starting to be ready. I also love trying my new things, like yellow globe cucumbers or new types of peppers. I think all the great time outside is like Gus and Greta at the river, but they don't get all the fresh food the same way. They do, however, have a great waterfall, and are adept at finding harvest without cultivation.

More than one type of Harvest

What a satisfying day this has been. I spent it with people I love, doing things I love, eating fresh things from the yard. It really doesn't get much better than that.

I started my day at 7:30 with a quick breakfast and a trip to have a morning "coffee" with Jaime and Erin. The trees were a beautiful golden colour interlaced with splashes of apple red. By the time we were done, I felt so peaceful and happy that my grocery shopping didn't even dent my zen like calm.  I picked Anwyn up and came home to do a flurry of the weekend chores: three loads of laundry, picking, watering, homework with the girls, and a bath. By 1 I had read my book, loved the leftover root veggies for lunch and was taking laundry off the line.

Perspective is everything. Remaking my bed downstairs I was happy to have fresh sheets, not oppressed by folding all the laundry. I made squares, and felt happy to use some of the zucchinni, apples and raspberries I had frozen, not mad about the dishes. My house is 25C and I have 5 loud girls over who I just taught debate to for two hours, but I am happy. I'll even be happy when 4 of them sleepover tonight. . .

Today I spent time in my yard, and I am cooking a great pasta sauce full of my fresh ingredients for our supper. I picked fresh flowers and celebrated the fact that the new windows open so widely the house will cool quickly. It's a good day, and I have more than one type of harvest. As the girls giggle together over the veggies and dip they are making, I feel very blessed.

Garlic, Pickles, Pesto and - Raspberries?

Today I puttered about picking cucumbers, tomatoes, beans, peas - all the usual, and then I got inspired. Mike loves it when I get inspired. Today I was inspired for Mike to make pickles, pesto and raspberry cheesecake with some of the things I picked.

We have everything we need right now for pickles. Mike likes to add lots of different colors in each jar, so it is rarely just our cucumbers, dill and garlic. Today we also did purple and yellow beans, carrots, chili peppers and jalapeno peppers in each of the three jars.  To get to three jars, I typically pick some cucumbers throughout the week, and every ten days or so in full production, we have enough for pickles.  I keep the picked cucumbers in the fridge between canning inspiration, but I am careful to make sure they are not washed or damp so they keep better as they wait to be canned. 

I found picking the garlic today interesting. I had never grown garlic successfully, and I am still not sure it was quite ready. I read a Canadian garlic site  from Boundary Garlic Farm, and learned that when you are on the second loop of the scape you can harvest the garlic. Mine also had seed pouches called bulbils. Next year if I cut those off, the plant will spend more time making the bulb bigger according to everything I read, and the Saskatchewan government emphasizes the importance of this in Northern climates.  I think I'll plant quite a bit more garlic this fall, as it seems to be doing well and we eat a lot of it during the year.

I cut back the greenhouse basil, which yielded a two picking baskets of basil. I had to plant it in February for it to have 4 leaves a plant by March 20th, when I transplanted the seedlings into little pots. It is a lot effort to get a big enough crop in Saskatchewan, but Mike loves it so much that we always plant lots. It always makes me happy when I pick a lot in July and August. Today we made four times our regular amount of pesto, so we used 4 cups of loosely packed basil leaves and froze the rest. We'll freeze small containers of pesto for use throughout the year.

For lunch we had the leftover sushi (roles and scattered) from last night, along with some spring rolls, cherries and sugar snap peas. I love eating this time of year because everything tastes so great out of the garden and it is so nice to be picking and cooking together. The food is healthy and not fattening (except for the cheesecakes like the raspberry one Mike is making right now).

We had picked some raspberries before lunch and  I froze 12 cups of raspberries in small ziplocs.  Anna asked what the best method is.  As Mike mentioned to her, traditionally, raspberries are frozen individually on a tray. This way each berry keeps it's shape, and they don't stick together as much in the bag.  I used to do this, but when you thaw the berry, it always becomes mushy. Plus, I inevitably turn it into a sauce or blend it into something. Mike and I concluded about 5 years ago that freezing each berry is way too much work. Now we put about 2 cups in each ziploc, as that is the amount we usually use when cooking. It doesn't mater if they stick together, because you are defrosting the whole bag.

It has been a fun day with our produce, but I think I am not feeling inspired for Mike to do some dry walling to prep for my painting, so I think my growing related inspiration is coming to an end.

Apple sauce

Mike finally agreed some apples are ready, and today we picked some. I still have 1 bag of frozen apples I'll need to use, and we picked 4 ice cream pails worth today, which is maybe one quarter of what is on the tree. Mike is going to make some into sauce, and I'll make some into pie.  The rest we'll likely freeze for cooking over the winter or eat fresh. My nephew Merlin (the biggest apple lover I have ever met) will likely get a bunch of them if he is interested, but he was not so happy about the first one I offered.

Making apple sauce is pretty easy. First you rough chop the apples, then you cook them in a bit of water (essentially steam) for 20 minutes.   We have a food mill, so we just put the apples through that after they are cooked to remove the seeds, stems and peel. Then we sweeten them to taste for apple sauce and can them. On hot days, we often cook on the BBQ's side burner, but today the high is only 23, so we can cook and can inside. The basic ratio is 12 pounds of apples to 3 cups of water and 3 cups of sugar. You also add about 4 tablespoons of lemon juice. We skipped the sugar this time, as we use this puree for an oil substitute in baking.  We did add cinnamon, though. Mike keeps trying to can in the pressure caner which never seems to work out, so while the sauce tastes great, he still isn't happy with it.

In addition to a food mill, the other great tool we use is an apple peeler.  It works best with eating size apples (which ours are), because it cores and peels. We got ours used at a garage sale, but I like so much I'd buy it new at Lee Valley.

Lots of food and a little hope about Cabbage Butterflies

This week marks the beginning of the time when there is a lot produced by the yard. We have been getting about 4 cups of strawberries a day for the last week and have picked 16 cups of rhubarb. Now the Saskatoons are ready, and we are eating kohlrabi, cucumbers and beans. The peas are also getting ready to produce, but I think we are a week away on them.  We are also eating beat greens, chard, spinach, lettuce and a myriad of herbs.

All this food has produced the typical seasonal eating. This includes lots of types salads, pesto, strawberry pie, tabbouleh, strawberry rhubarb crisp and a great new rhubarb BBQ sauce Mike is making. Since the Saskatoons are ripe in the yard, we hope to go and pick what we'll freeze at a U-pick next week, as our two small bushes just make a few handfuls at this point.  I think we'll also be picking raspberries in the next week, and this looks like it will be a great summer for them.

My biggest organic triumph of the year is the kohlrabi, but I am still nervous about them. Last year they were decimated by cabbage white butterflies, who lay single white eggs on the underside of the leaf. These hatch into nearly invisible green caterpillars, who hide on the underside of the leaf and munch the leaves. I have a few holes in the leaves this year, and have seen some white butterflies, but the floating row cover I made seems to be working so far.  I am worried the mesh is too large (I have caught butterflies inside it so I have good reason to be concerned), and I don't want this to turn into another negative lesson learned. So far this seems a much better year than last year - almost everything in the garden and most flowers are ahead by about a week.