Enjoying the harvest

It has been a while between posts. We have been keeping busy with cleaning up the garden, enjoying our harvest and a new job for me.

Using our harvests has included lots of grilling and fire pit meals along with some wine making. The potatoes have been great cooked over the fire. Our favorite has been the fingerling we grew- Rose Finn Apple. We look forward to trying several different fingerlings next year. It has been fun to grow them in pots and any other containers we can find. We just empty them into the wheelbarrow and have delicious spuds without the digging. I especially like the versatility of the Rose Finn Apple. It is wonderful grilled and for thickening soups and sauces.

Our fruiting plants are still a year or more away from being fully productive but have already provided delicious for fresh eating and wine making. Yesterday we re-racked our Ruby's Garden wine. It is made from all the garden left-overs including black currants, raspberries, strawberries and black cherry tomatoes. Don't laugh. It has a delicate, fruity flavor and it is definitely a one of a kind wine. The black currants lend a lovely red color.

Although we still have plenty to keep us busy, I'm already working on the garden plans for next year. Definitely more raspberry and blueberry plants. I also will give my ground cherry plants a head-start indoors. The toughest decision is which potato varieties to try. We want them all!

Berries, wines and other garden treasures

This isn't the first raspberry from our garden this year but it is the first one we didn't munch before we could take a picture. We planted these this year and so far we are pleased. It is called Autumn Britten and they are huge with a delicious tangy sweet flavor. It looks like we should have a good yield with plenty for eating and sharing with a little left over for wine making.

We started a wine this week with our red currants and blackberries from a friend. So far the flavor is very good. Hopefully the delicate fruity taste will survive the fermentation process.

Our cool weather this summer is slowing down the tomatoes a bit. However, a few are taking on a hint of blush and we hope to have some ready to eat by next week. The green peppers look good even without warm temperatures.

I planted one squash variety this year: Thelma Sanders sweet potato squash. The seed catalogs identified it as being "enormously productive". That is proving to be true in my garden (maybe I shouldn't have planted so many). I hope they store well! I guess it is time to get my husband working on improving our basement storage area for squash and potatoes. However, I also don't want to distract him from his latest project which is making more raised bed gardens for me. I definitely need more room for corn and potatoes next year.

Spring report

Today marked my official end of grad school for now and the beginning of gardening season. The yellow rose was part of the graduation ceremony and seemed just ready for a photo.

It will be nice to have some time to get out into the garden. However, the lows here may be close to freezing tonight so I'm not going to put tomatoes, peppers, melons and squash out yet. I hope things will warm up next week. The front yard has the scent of lilacs while the fragrance of clove currants is wonderful in the back yard. The alpine strawberry plants you see in the picture are doing well. They are a bit tedious to pick but are a wonderful treat. Even though it is still early in the season, we have been able to harvest lovage, baby greens, asparagus and rhubarb. We are even thinking of "harvesting" the lilacs after having seeing a recipe for lilac wine. Sounds good or too weird to try?