My favorite fruit is pretty much done for the year, alas. This time though – for the first time in 3 years – I managed to make it to the pick-your-own orchard for sour cherries before they were all gone. Cherry almond sauce, sour cherry jam, pie filling, cherry syrup (in lovely flip-top bottles), […]
We have strawberries, people! Boy, howdy do we have strawberries. When I made the big terrace on Backfill Hill two years ago, I ran out of Freecycled landscape blocks and was left with a fair bit of steep hillside. I planted a whole bunch of strawberries on the slope just as soil retention, not really expecting […]
What with the garden rendering hauls like this just about every other day… It was time to start up the canner! Those are only 1/4 of the tomatillos I got, and boy howdy, my jalapenos are going like gangbusters. I have no idea what I’ll do with them all – try to sell them, I […]
I’ve been meaning to follow in OhioFarmGirl’s footsteps and can my own beans for quite a while now… two years in fact! And finally my chance came. I had nothing planned for the day, and black beans were on sale at the grocery store. I took a deep breath and jumped in. There are detailed […]
I’ve been remiss! I just realized I never posted about our winemaking endeavor; and it was begun in January. One would think I didn’t like wine that much! (One would be wrong.) It’s not wine from our own grapes, alas. Those, I can barely get to stay alive, much less produce fruit. This was a […]
The apple scrap vinegar I made using Jonathan apple scraps turned such a gorgeous color of fuschia pink – and smells so good and appley – that I couldn’t just keep it for myself. I have a dear friend that donates her fancy empty bottles, mason jars, and egg cartons to me – I always […]
Of delicious red tomatoes. No, these are not my own tomatoes, alas. These are from the farm stand just down the road; because of last night’s frost warning they were culling all the tomatoes from the fields and they had 1/2 bushel baskets set out front, stacked on bleacher seats, “Seconds! Buy 2 get one […]
It’s Fall, and for us that means Applesauce Time! With two kids we’ll go through it faster than ever. This year instead of going to a pick your own place we asked our local farmer if he had Jonathans (my favorite for applesauce and pies – I missed them SO MUCH last year!). He didn’t, […]
I recently found out about a local farmer who delivers free-range, organic, pastured meats to a a little flower shop just five minutes away. And lo and behold, the same day that I picked up, we ran out of BACON! Tragedy averted – I bought 10 pounds of pork belly and we’ll have more bacon […]
I spent this past Memorial Day collecting our first-ever honey harvest! Click the video link below to see an explanation of how it was done.