Many crab apples, and same old same old garden pictures

 A friend dropped off 2 bags of crab apples and then my sister invited me to pick crab apples at her house, this is how I ended up with 6 bags pf apples. Yes sir yes sir 6 bags full. I turned them all into juice. It is so simple. Cut all your apples in half and put in a big bowl or pot, pour boiling water over them and let them sit for 24-36 hours. Strain (no mashing, just straining) the now beautiful pink water into a large pot (or 2) and add sweetener to your taste. I  like honey, and I don't like my apple juice too tart, I think I had 18 cups of juice to about 1 1/2 cups honey. Boil this for about 10 minutes and pour into hot clean jars, no need to water bath as they will seal. Let stand on kitchen counter for at least a week so you can admire how pretty and pink it is before putting on your cold storage shelf. When you are done straining the juice off the apples you will be left with buckets of perfectly fine looking apples, you will be tempted to do something with them, do not....do not make pie with them. There is no flavor left in those apples, your pie will not taste like apples, you MUST put them in your compost bin. I know, it seems wasteful. I think on a cold winter day this juice would be really good heated up with some cinnamon and cloves, but for now it is good cold on ice with a few mint leaves.

On the left raspberry rhubarb juice, then pretty pink apple juice and some pickles.

Another friend had way too many cucumbers so I made 3 jars of pickles, I normally don't do pickles but I knew I would not be able to eat them all. I am also blanching and freezing beans as I pick them from my small patch.

I figured that since I was doing something new like making pickles I should go all out and really make something new so I made these beautiful Asian Moon Pickles. Got the recipe and picture below from Liesl's site here http://nestinground.blogspot.com/  I forgot to take a picture of mine but they didn't look near as pretty as Liesl's. I couldn't find black sesame seeds anywhere so I had to settle for the ordinary white ones. I haven't tried them yet. Thank-you Liesl. 

Tomatoes are at all different stages

More tomatoes

My afternoon snack at work, I get my 5-10 servings of vegetables in before supper, I've learned to eat tomatoes like apple...no core or seeds to spit out

This is my garlic harvest , minus 1. Need to plant more next year.

From what I am reading this squash is ready to be picked when he is not shiny anymore, I'm getting a little impatient, they are still all bright green and shiny and Jack frost is breathing down our necks here. 

These are organic brandy wine tomatoes and they still growing and not turning red yet, they are in the greenhouse so harm of frost but I'm not sure if I should pick them or let them be.

This little guy will soon be pie

This guy wants to be the "prize pumpkin".

IS there any other flower that is more wholesome and farm-like than sweet peas?

My ivies have decided they are tired and done for the year and are  putting on one last show for me

The weather has started to turn on us, we had one morning at 3C with about 5C being the normal now. Our days are still nice, anywhere from 15C to 25C but with a cool fall breeze. It's at this time that I start thinking more and more of my Mexican home and friends and of taco of course. I really start craving tacos and toni-col, and tostadas, etc. I also start thinking of knitting, I actually started a little knitting project, a little baby sweater, there are no babies in my life but it couldn't hurt to have a gift on hand and it is a very easy quick project just to get my kntting groove on. The pattern can be found here :http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/baby-sophisticate

I have also been drinking Mexican hot chocolate in the evenings, I don't even drink this stuff when I am in Mexico because it's just not cold enough there for hot chocolate. Those of you that know me know I don't like chocolate but this chocolate is very mild and not too sweet and mixed with cinnamon. It's more like hot frothy milk with just a hint of chocolate. Most of us North Americans coming home from Mexico have a few of these boxes in out suitcases, usually more than we need, I think we are just  infatuated with the hexagon shaped box...I know I am. There are many different brands but the box is always hexagon shaped.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibarra_(chocolate) 

MY garden makes making lunch so fast and easy. Boil a pot of water with some carrots, onions, garlic, add some noodles, a tomato consume cube and at the last minute some swiss chard....so good.

"Always Something"

I watched a movie awhile back, I don't recall the name of it now, where a man had named his boat "Always Something". I think my home, my car, and my job should all be named "Always Something" in fact my whole life could be summed up with those 2 words, or at the very least I should have it printed on a T-shirt because;
There is always something that is falling apart or needing to be fixed in my home
There is always something making a funny expensive sounding noise in my car
There is always something keeping my bank account balance from being all that it should be
There is always something that keeps my hair from being as cute as it could be
There is always something that keep me from getting ahead of the dirty laundry
There is always something that seems to be more important that reading "War and Peace" (I really want to read that fat book)
There is always something that interrupts my morning devotions and quiet time
There is always something that keeps me from having lazy relaxing Sundays
There is always something in the fine print that keep me from cashing in on my air miles
There is always something that didn't get done at the end of the day
There is always something that seems to delay my trips
Always Something...............

Jam spatter and tomato juice

I did not disappear, I did not run away, I have not been kidnapped by giant Zucchinis, I didn't get strangled by disgruntled Nasturtiums and I didn't drown in a giant pot of raspberry jam.....that was a near miss, there is a lot of jam in this house, more than any one human being should ever have. There was one heck of a mess in my kitchen, two weeks later I am still finding jam splatter in places.

This is one of my favorite recipes, raspberries, saskatoons, a banana or two, strawberries if you have (I didn't this time) add a sweetener, I like honey but was out so I used brown sugar, add some vanilla (lots, love love vanilla) mash with a potato masher and put into jars and freeze...it's that simple. Put some on ice cream, on a pound cake, on an angle food cake, on your pancakes, on crepes......or invent something new to eat it with.....please let me know I have 15 pints in my freezer.

Why such a mess if the recipe is so simple you ask? I have no idea what happened

There was a wee bit of raspberries left over so I just put in little baggies and into the freezer, there may be a cobbler or a raspberry coffee cake or 2 in my future........or 10

I also made some raspberry juice, also very easy. Pack raspberries into quart jars and then fill the jar with vinegar, cover and let sit on the counter for 24 hours (or 36 like I did) squeeze it through cheese cloth, or a colander like I did and all the seeds came through too...oh well, cheese cloth next time. Measure your liquid and put into a big pot and add equal amount of sweetener (I like honey or brown sugar and I don't do equal amount....I do not have a sweet tooth) then bring it to a boil and boil for about 10 minutes (or so) and put into jars and freeze or put in a hot water bath (Like I do because my freezer is getting full) This is very concentrated, when mixing with water just taste and mix as you like it. This is a very pretty bright red juice and might be good with vodka ..... just saying is all. 

There are no pictures of the jam, maybe because my camera got lost in the messy kitchen or maybe because by the time my jam was done the place just didn't look very picturesque at all, but there are 19 1/2 pints of raspberry jam in my pantry. Somebody needs to eat a lot of jam around here, I don't even like jam, I would not ruin my toast with jam. From now on no body leaves my house without a jar of jam. So why do I make jam if I don't even like it? I have a source for free raspberries and I am German, and my people do not ever let food go to waste and we like hoarding food like no body's business, and I like making jam, and it impresses people and it's so so so pretty. Is that enough ands for you.....mostly I make jam because I have some friends that love jam and I love gifting them some jam. Jam is a pretty gift.

Then, the lady at the greenhouse had an abundance of ripe tomatoes and so my German hoarding bone (different than the funny bone) took over again and I came home with two bags of ripe tomatoes and made tomato juice, my version of V8.

Tomatoes cut into quarters, about 3 stalks of celery and some dried chili peppers (I only brought home about 89 lbs of them from Mexico...the hoarding bone thing again) I bubbled it on the stove for some time and put through cheese cloth (no seeds this time) and hot water bathed for some time. I must say I got the chili amount just right, it has just the right amount of kick to it. Salt the rim of a chilled glass and dunk in a celery stick and oh my......lovely. Might be good with beer...just saying is all. 

Lovely tomato juice in my pantry

Now, lets go for walk in my garden

Beans, corn and squash living very happily together...really together

There will be pumpkin in my freezer this winter.....and I won't be here, seems like my planning is a bit off

The pumpkin and squash fence

The squash made it to the top of the arbor

I also have a little garden at the golf course and my radishes there are almost as big as ..... golf balls of course.

The little garden on the 11 th tee box , squash, zucchini, pumpkin, corn and tomatoes.....it's a vegi jungle 

I dug my garlic out, note to self....plant more next year

How big do my tomatoes want to get before they start turning red? 

This sunflower has hit the roof

I love my pea fence, peas, sweet peas, dill, some onions (got smothered) and the ever so bossy Nasturtiums

The peas never made it into the house, I just picked a bowl full and then sat outside and ate them. 

I've discovered that I am not the traditional gardener that my people are, the Germans like having everything in nice orderly straight rows, but I love to see my tomatoes tangled up with my cucumbers with some bossy nasturtiums poking through

A beautiful tangled bed

more tangled cucumbers and tomatoes

The view from my kitchen window....it makes me smile

For some reason my pictures are a bit blurry this week, maybe because it all went so fast. August seems to be in a rush to get it over with. I have to admit that this rush gardening is tiring. When you live this far north you are always trying to push your garden faster than the pages of the summer calender pages and August is the last page, if we are lucky the garden could survive into September...lucky. I tend to just want to give up by mid August but then I know my fresh vegetable lunches at work would be over so I have my old sheets ready to start covering if needed, most of the tomatoes and peppers are safe in the greenhouse but most of my squash is not ready to harvest just yet.
As the summer comes to an end I start getting lonesome for my home on Stone Island and my Mexican friends, I start thinking of tacos more and more. I start making a to "do list" and a "to bring" list I start listening to Mexican music and reading in Spanish more. I also start to think about knitting, as knitting is a winter thing for me, I am itching to start a knitting project. I have an old favorite wool sweater than needs to be repaired. I've had it for year and it is starting to unravel at places. This sweater rides on the seat of my tractor at work almost everyday, it hasn't been washed in years for fear it will fall apart but it will not survive another season unless I give it some love.

Can you just feel how cozy this sweater is, it is like my security blanket. 

I love love the feeling of being all wrapped in a big wool sweater, I just love that the wool I am wearing was once on a sheep, it's liking hugging a sheep all day. Wool is just so real and pure. I would like to always wear wool but it can get too hot....even way up here. This sweater was always too big, the neck was always to open for me and I have always wanted to rip it and reknit it into a more snugger fitting sweater with a turtle neck instead of the wide open neck, I think it would be warmer if it was snugger, I've just never taken the time to take that project on, the thought of ripping it is kind of daunting to me, in some places it has almost felted already. This is a project I always start thinking of this time of year....will it be just thought again or will it actually happen this year?

Just in case you are thinking that everything is wonderful on my little urban farm I will show you some  rotten tomatoes,  I seem to have some bottom end rot...again. It's lack of calcium in the soil or inconsistent watering from what research (goggling) I've done. I am feeding my dirt egg shells and have been very faithful with consistent watering this year...so tell me why this is happening again?

Garden Promises

I have to tell you I just haven't had a lot of ambition to do anything inside the house lately, including writing long winded blog posts so I've been cheating and just posting a lot of pictures and short commentaries. I promise I'll go back to boring you with all kinds of stories once the weather stops being so nice...seriously, it's been hot hot hot and more hot with a few short little rain showers in between, which my garden is lovin, let's have a tour and see what promises it is giving me;

The Zucchini are making some pretty big promises.....we'll see.

There is a promise of a pumpkin pie

The very first red tomato promised to be delicious .......

and was.

The rest were nobby and not perfect but yet so delicious. 

Delicious very time.

yup.... I never get tired of fresh tomatoes.

and promises of more.....

promises of tomato sauce, tomato soup, tomato juice and salsa

Promises of some split pea soup

Beans and squash aren't making any promises yet.....I'm watching closely.

The celery is promising to be amazing if I just had the heart to cut it...it's so beautiful I don't want to.

This squash is promising to make it to the top of the arbor but isn't actaully promsiing any squash yet, oh well I guess you can't have it all.

The strawberries promised me many many strawberries and then only gave me a handful, and now they are again promising me many many, how many times will I fall for these tricks? I've been courting them all summer and soon they better put out or get out of this 4x8 bed that could be used by something more productive. 

The beets, have fulfilled all promises, they are beautiful, juicy, healthy from top to bottom and have kept me peeing red all summer. 

The poor beans, I couldn't protect them from the grasshoppers, I fought a hard battle with the garden hose and the pasty flour, but yet, they are still promising beans. 

The raspberries seem to be holding out on me......not making any promises. 

I promised to have have more relaxing Sundays.....and I did (once)

The cucumbers are still promising to get on top of the  Nasturtiums, and I promised to throw that rag on the line out...opps

There was promises of rain.....and it rained.

That's it, that's all I have for you this week. I promise I'll have more next week.