Raspberry Jelly!

Last week, I made raspberry jelly. I mashed and then cooked the raspberries a little, then left them hanging in the jelly bag a few hours. I haven't done this for about 30 years! Once you have the juice from the berries, the procedure is just like for making jam....easy! And beautiful...I love the transparency of jelly.

Sept 5: Raspberry Jam!

Made 6 jars of Raspberry Jam tonight. For the past 2 months, only a few raspberries have ripened each day. But this week they started to come in heavily. So I picked Tuesday and today, had 5 cups of berries, and made jam with Ball classic pectin, but used the low sugar recipe on the label. Looks and tastes yummy!

August 2013

Here it is August 27!  I can't believe it's been over a month since I wrote on this blog.  Soooooo much has of course happened in the garden since my last post in July.  The garlic and onions have been harvested, and a row of new seedlings now occupy the old onion bed.   The cucumbers and beans have flourished and are already on the decline.  The corn is tall, not too many ears, but tonight I ate the first ear--good tasting although one side was missing several kernels, meaning incomplete pollination.  Pumpkins are growing--I think I've counted about 7 nice sized pie pumpkins, most of which are already orange, and a couple of little ones.    But I think that's all that will grow because the new pumpkin flowers have LOTS of bugs! Lots of cucumbers, but I cut one last week, which wasn't at all ripe, so I'm waiting on the rest---I read that the area where the stem meets the melon should turn brown and crusty looking instead of soft and green.  I'm excited to say there are 3 watermelons...not quite ripe, I think.  The apples almost ripened, but were grabbed up by the campers very quickly.  I cut back the gangly spreading all over lemon balm---I think I need to get it out of the garden and grow it around the stump like the other mints.  I also cut back the huge tarragon bush and the dill that was going to seed.   And the tomatoes are now coming.  They got stalled during the cool weather of late July and early August, but are ripening quickly now in the 90 degree heat.  And I'm thrilled to say that the newly planted cilantro is growing at just the right time for tomatoes (used lots of both in the salsa class I taught yesterday---we picked the tomatoes and salsa, and also basil for pesto, in the garden, and then went down to the Anderson Center to make the salsa and pesto.  16 students.  )  Earlier this week I finally got the strawberry runners cut back and the older withered leaves pulled off---long overdue care of the strawberry bed.   We've had a small crop of grapes, now done, and the raspberries have zillions of unripe berries, but only a few ripen each day.  And that's a month's worth of garden news.  Now for some photos:

Garlic pulled and ready to hang!

Cucumber and corn growing fast

Paths around asparagus all weeded and woodchipped

Cantaloupe and watermelon patch

Lemon balm cut down

Tall corn!



Cucumbers!  Two batches of pickles made.



Lots of cantaloupes, slow to ripen, vines dying, maybe too much watering



7 pumpkins!



The garden from the south end, starting with the pumpkin patch

The garden from the north end, starting with the strawberry patch

Tomato press from mary Kirby...so cool...makes sauce before cooking, separates out the seeds and skins.  Then I boiled it down about halfway and froze several pkgs.

Radishes

Cilantro.  So happy that this second planting is well timed with the tomatoes ripening.  Used it in salsa making class this week.

Finally cut the strawberry runners..patch looks so tidy now!




Tomatoes finally ripening, rapidly in this 90+ degree F heat.

 


New plantings (in previous onion bed).  Cilantro, parseley, basil, radish, red beet, sunflowers.
Red cabbage and zinnias did not come up.



An invasion of bugs on pumpkin flowers!

July 19: Everything growing so fast in heatwave!

90 degree F temperatures all week.  Watering everyday to keep up with the evaporation!  But the result is amazing growth.  In the ten days since I last blogged,, so much has happened!
First of all, we weeded and freshly woodchipped most of the paths and the fruit beds.
Here's the path by the tomato plants, which now have small green tomatoes!

Also managed finally to get the area around the asparagus weeded and the asparagus corralled with a rope fence so that it doesn't hang all over the ground.   And got a trellis built for the cucumbers, just in time, as their vines are growing wildly longer each day--the first cucumber was 3 in log yesterday, 5 inches today!  At that rate, it will be ready to pick in 2 more days! 

 

                                                                             

The carrots and zuchinis are growing rapidly too.  A week ago I saw the first tiny zuchini, and now look at the too-big zuchinis that I picked yesterday and today!   BEans are going gangbusters too.  I've picked 10 pounds of beans--most are already in the freezer!  

 

July 9: Colorful herbs, beans, and RR ties

The colorful herbs are sooooo beautiful.
Dill in the foreground. 
Purple lavender.
Pink bergamot.
Yellow calendula marigolds.

The first string beans!

Dan, Jeremy, Bobbie, and Daryl came over and moved RR ties on the edges of the black plastic tarp I had laid under the wood chip pile.   Then I spread out the chips to fill the RR tie "box" they'd made.   There's still a pile of chips in the middle for spreading onto the main path through the garden.  My idea is to have a big weedfree area where the pumpkin vines can spread out without being in the way of teh lawn mowers.   Plus I want to plant some other vining plants in pots on the woodchips. 

July 7: Nasturtiums, sweet potatoes, a trellis, and weeded onions



A crown of nasturtium jewels!




Some heavy duty weeding made the onion and garlic beds look great!



A new experiment!  Sweet potato vine growing from the chunk of sw. potato I planted!

Made a trellis of old willow sticks for the cucumbers.  And the corn is knee high!  I planted squash and pole beans with 3 of the corn plants...the "three sisters" Native American tradition.

July 2: Day Campers with radishes, onions, lettuce

The day campers picked radishes, onions, and lettuce, plus dug manure and planted calendulas.