Thursday, August 03, 2006

Of Apples And Such

Tuesday was apple day here at our place. I harvested some of the apples from the two trees that are producing this year. It seems early, but if I don't get the apples now, the bugs will. They're ripe enough, anyway. We don't treat the trees at all, so what we get is what we get; we share the bounty with the bugs and birds. Reminds me of Joni Mitchell:

Hey farmer farmer put away that d.d.t. now
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees
Please!

Not to mention the moles. At any rate, here's the one of the apple trees in question:

Sorry I didn't take any pictures of the processing, but we were kind of frenzied. Ken peeled and I cored and sliced and we ended up with 3 quarts of applesauce put up in 2-cup quantities and frozen for use in applesauce cakes this fall and winter, AND a whole huge potload of apple jelly that we put into jars yesterday morning.

Apple jelly cooling in the jars.

The rest of the garden is coming along nicely.

Semi-regimented rows of good stuff, with apple trees behind. That's the house in the background.

Boy, are we gonna have tomatoes! Many of them will end up in sauce, frozen of course, for use over winter.

The squash patch continues to deliver zucchini and yellow squash.

I hope I'm not too boring with all the garden photos, but this is what occupies us for much of the spring and summer, aside from houseguests. It's really nice to eat fresh stuff in season, and equally as nice to eat the garden food over the winter.

5 comments:

  1. No boredom here! Keep doing what you're doing please (both at home and on the blog).
    Chris P

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  2. That's a lot of plum jam, Susan! Thanks to both you and Chris for the kind words. Today is zucchini bread day.

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  3. Three gallons of plum jam!?! Wow, I thought three quarts of apple jelly was a lot. You are welcome, Susan, to send us as much plum jam as you want.

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  4. Hi Walt,
    I need le B. A. on jelly jar lids. I see that you are using the lids that came with the jar. Here, the USDA has convinced us that we need to use special canning lids and rims (from Ball or Kerr) to vacuum seal the jars properly. Is this untrue, and the jars seal when you process (boil) the jars with the screw-on lids? Or do you freeze the jelly jars, so it doesn't matter if they seal?
    Chris P

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  5. Chris,

    We do indeed use "previously owned" jars - we just boil them and their lids, fill them while they're hot, and let them cool slowly. The lids usually seal just fine. If they don't, we either try again or put the jar in the fridge and eat that jelly first, or at worst discard the jar.

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