Final Jam Tally for 2014

Jamming season is officially done for the year.  I spent a few hours yesterday making blueberry-currant jam, which marks the end of jam making, but not canning for the year.  We'll be making our special pickled beets in another few weeks, once the beets are ready. 

The final jam/jelly making tally for the year was as follows (all numbers are half-pint or pint containers):
 - 3 Currant Jelly (this is an experimental jelly this year)
 - 7 Raspberry Currant Jam (recipe here)
 - 19 Strawberry Jam
 - 26 Blueberry Currant Jam

Your initial reaction might be "Holy Buckets!!  What do you need that much jam for?"  And verily 'tis a fair question.  55 jars of jam and jelly may seem like a lot, but we'll probably give away 15 to 20 as gifts or in exchange to friends who make other homemade things. My volleyball friend Matt and I have a regular homemade beer for homemade jam exchange.  The rest of the jam is used as an inoculation to ward off or cure the winter blues, and kept on hand in case of scurvy.

There are few other things quite as inspiring as a pantry full of homemade goods.  Also in this shot are the dozen quarts of peaches we canned this year, and some applesauce from last year.  We may not can applesauce this year, we'll have to see.

Next to those peaches, on the bottom right of the photo, are the boxes of Bob's Red Mill Hearty Whole Grain Bread Mix.  It's the best gluten free flour mix we've tried, and when we get it through the Amazon Subscribe and Save Program, it winds up being much cheaper than we can ever find in the store.  And even though it's gluten free, fresh out of the oven on a chilly winter day with some homemade blueberry jam on it, it is excellent.    

How about you awesome readers?  Any canning or food preservation victories so far this summer?

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Shaak Ti - Upside Down Again

Here's yet another picture of Shaak Ti lounging around upside down in her bed and looking groggily at me. It looks uncomfortable, but who am I to argue.

She spends more time upside down; awake, asleep, playing, you name it, than any other dog I've ever met or even heard of.  What a goofball.  As I write this she's upside down laying against the couch, passed out from baking her brain out on the back steps. 

Monarchs and Flowers

I spotted our first Monarch Butterfly of the season yesterday and was able to snap this photo before it flew off (it's middle bottom of the picture).  It was briefly resting on the Summer Sun Heliopsis (heliopsis scabra) before it took off for parts unknown.  Like many other gardeners across the country, it's taken a long time to spot the first Monarch of the season, and sadly it may be the only one we see all year.

Next to the Summer Sun Heliopsis and underneath the currants (now relieved of their fruit) are the coneflowers, which are just starting to bloom in numbers.  These purple beauties are the PowWow Wild Berry Coneflower (echinacea) and they attract butterflies, bees, and other pollinators.  Both of these photos are from the same mounded area in the front yard.

The last picture below is the vegetable garden.  The pink and purple petunias line the front, just behind the landscaping blocks.  Since it's in the front yard, this helps give the illusion to a passerby that the whole area is flowers and fun plants, not a working vegetable garden. The area between the landscaping blocks and apple trees was turf last year.  We used the lasagna mulching technique to cover over the grass earlier this year, and the quality of soil will continue to improve as we add mulch, manure, and compost. 

Behind the petunias are apple trees, watermelon, potatoes, and beets (between the apple trees).  In the last week the watermelon have finally gotten the consecutive days of heat that they need and they've taken off.

This is just a snapshot of what's blooming and growing on the homestead in this first week of August.  Berry season and intensive jamming are almost behind us. After my blueberry currant jam making tomorrow or Wednesday, we should be chock full of jam for the year and also have plenty to give away as Holiday presents.  As jamming season ends, tomato season begins!!

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The Current Currant Harvest

This week we stripped all the currants from the red currant and black currant bushes and processed them for jam making.  It was a pretty good year for the currants and we got enough of them to make +/- 6 batches of Raspberry-Currant and Blueberry Currant jam.

Lovely bowl of red currants.  Don't worry, we washed them thoroughly and removed those leaves.   While we removed the leaves, we left the currants on their stems.  We harvested about 8 quarts total of currants.

Stunningly colored black currants.  Currants are full of pectin and with them added to a jam recipe, we don't have to use any additional pectin, it all comes from the currants and the jam sets up great.  The currants give the Raspberry-Currant and Blueberry Currant jams a nice tannin-y tart bite. 

Afternoon Sunbeam Slumber

Shadowfax spent much of Sunday afternoon reluctant to emerge from her slumberball. The humans spent the day working in the yard and canning peaches, industrious and productive.  The opposite of a lazy, solar-powered pooch. 

The summer sunbeam was powerful indeed. 

Record Rain, Big Winds, Tornado Warning

It was a hot and steamy day yesterday.  A cold front was forecast to drop through the area in the late afternoon and evening triggering strong storms, and that forecast was spot on.  We got 69 mile per hour wind gusts, 2.71 inches of rain, two plus hours of thunder/lightening/torrential downpours, and a tornado warning. 

A tornado warning was issued at about 8:30pm and the warning sirens in town went off.  We hunkered down in the basement and listened to the hand cranked weather radio.  Funnel cloud(s) had been spotted west of town, so call me a weather-wuss, but I was happy to hang out in the basement for 45 minutes or so until the warning passed.  The dogs?  Those deaf pups slept right through the whole thing.

There are a bunch of small branches and twigs strewn all about, but two much larger branches are hanging down in the backyard. I'm going to have to break out my telescoping tree pruner (one of those tools that you don't use very often, but are damn glad to have it when you do need it) and clean those up this afternoon. 

The only real casualty was an apple tree that got blown over.  It got bent over to the ground at its base and when I righted it, I could hear some roots snapping.  I set it upright, stomped the dirt back down and gave it some support stakes.  I'll go out this afternoon and give it some more detailed attention. Hopefully it can make it back from the brink...apple trees are remarkably resilient. 

From the National Weather Service:

RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE EASTERN NORTH DAKOTA/GRAND FORKS
143 AM CDT JULY 22 2014

...RECORD DAILY MAXIMUM RAINFALL SET AT GRAND FORKS UNIVERSITY
(NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE)...

 A RECORD RAINFALL OF 2.71 INCHES WAS SET AT GRAND FORKS UNIVERSITY
(NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE) YESTERDAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF
2.03 SET IN 1966.

"H" Plants are Blooming - Heliopsis, Hollyhock, Hosta

Lots of H plants are blooming in the garden, specifically the Heliopsis, Hollyhocks, and Hostas.  We've finally gotten some warm/hot weather and the heat loving plants are finally starting to thrive. 

The Summer Sun Heliopsis (heliopsis scarbra) is in full bloom, and I'm glad I planted them together in masses in the front yard.  As you can see below, they look great planted in a mass together, and they're in the bird feeder area, so any stray sunflowers that the birds drop that sprout will look right at home and blend in nicely.  Heliopsis are also known as "false sunflower".

These were root divisions that we got from BloomingBulb.com. I've proclaimed the awesomeness of them before in a previous post - Paprika Yarrow and Awesome Customer Service from BloomingBulb.com.  I'm not getting paid to shill for them, I'm just a super satisfied customer. 

 Hidden amongst the field of heliopsis are the first hollyhock (alcea rosea) flowers of the year.

The first pink blooms of the year, back-lit by the morning sun.  I'm not sure of the variety.  We got these as free seeds on a garden tour a few year back, so other than "Pretty!!", I don't know much about them.  Hollyhocks are a bit unusual in that they're a biennial plant, they grow the first year (occasionally throwing up a flower), then die back and grow significantly larger and bloom magnificently in the second year before dying off completely.

Blueberries and Currants Covered with Bird Netting

I often chat with people about the berries I grow here on the Deaf Dogs and Benevolent Gnomes homestead.  They're usually impressed at the red currants, black currants, blueberries, and strawberries we grow, but almost always have some tale of woe at trying their hand at raising berries but not having success. 

After proper site selection, good soil, and watering, the single most important factor in whether or not you get a lot of (any kind) of berries is whether or not you install bird netting. Bird netting is a simple netting (like a fishing net) made of plastic that you drape over the bushes and keeps the birds from landing on and devouring all your berries.

Just about every bird in our area, except for maybe the bald eagles, love nothing more than ripe berries, grapes, or cherries.  Actually just about any ripe fruit is a magnet for birds, and given the chance they'll get all your fruit before you do.  I've seen Ceder Waxwings strip a large cherry tree in half a day, and given the chance birds will take all your fruit from you as well, unless you take some steps to prevent them. 

Above is the bird netting on our red currants.  Bird netting isn't installed year round, it really only has to be on the bushes for a few weeks when the fruit is ripening, then it can be removed.  It usually comes in green or black and is fairly inconspicuous, so it won't look too unsightly in the garden.  

This is the netting on our blueberry area.  The netting is held up by miscellaneous sticks that I've accumulated for just such purpose and I'll remove this all by the end of the month.

Bird netting is fairly inexpensive and lasts for several years, depending on your patience level and how neatly you store it at the end of the season.  It's definitely something that's worth every penny if you want to protect your crop.  You can check out some bird netting options here and here from eBay, or you can see what Amazon has to offer.