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I haven't been entirely lazy around here, even though I have neglected this space. After winter, a switch was flipped in typical New England fashion and we find ourselves in summer.... at least thisclose to it. Proof from the gardens:

garlic scapes almost ready to curl

 strawberries turning blush

 these are gooseberries - delicious in pie and preserves

 beans, kale, lettuce

 red currants got decimated by the rain, I think

 the wild strawberries I grow as a ground cover

 the first few cherry tomatoes are forming

 

 blueberries will need netting soon

a gratuitous flower show of the front yard. The spireas are about to bust out in pink and I am seeing a few more hydrangea buds than last year.

Salsa verde

 

I recently had the good fortune to be invited to dinner at a friend who's a great gardener and canner. She served us this green tomato salsa for starters, and I was inspired. I had a few unripe tomatoes myself, though not enough for a whole batch. Farm share to the rescue! 2 quarts of tomatillos would work  just swell. I dug around for more recipes, and they were all somewhat similar so I committed the biggest canning no-no there is. I messed with the recipes. Specifically, I used the above recipe as a starting point, but wanted to add 2 sweet red peppers, which I found represented in this recipe. I was working off half a batch there. To play things safe, I made sure the total acidity in terms of vinegar and lime juice was equal or above both recipes. Also, I sadly can't be specific about my hot peppers since they, too, came from the farm simply labeled 'hot peppers'. It didn't bother me, since I wasn't aiming for crazy spicy salsa anyway. If you are, I recommend cross-checking spicy recipes!

So here's what I ended up with:

5 cups chopped cored green tomatoes and tomatillos (a majority of the latter)
2 large red sweet peppers, finely chopped
2 yellowish green hot peppers of questionable origin. Not too hot
1 long dark green hot pepper, hotter but nowhere near jalapeno potency.
2 cups finely chopped red onion (3 good sized onions)
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 cup lime juice
1/4 cup white vinegar
2 Tsp dried cilantro (though I wish I'd had fresh)
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp sugar

8 (8 oz) half pint glass preserving jars with lids and bands

I put all ingredients in a pot, brought them to a boil while stirring and kept it bubbling for 5 minutes. I didn't want to have soggy salsa, so I didn't cook it as long as the second recipe suggested.

 

I was more-than-usually paranoid about ladling into piping hot, clean 8oz jars and processed them for 15 minutes immediately. It made 8 half-pint jars plus a bowl that I placed in the fridge for immediate taste testing.

The usual disclaimer: I cannot vouch for the safety of the above recipe. If you make it, you're doing so at your own risk.

{this moment}

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{this moment}

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

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Waiting for Tomatoes

New garden, side view.

Have you read 'Waiting for Godot'? It's a whacky story by Samuel Beckett, in which he writes about me and my kids, waiting for the tomatoes. Will they arrive? How sure can we be? They're there, alright. So is the blight. Every day I clip off a few more yellowed leaves... it's a race against sunshine. 

The kids and I will be leaving for a few weeks tomorrow, so the garden will be in dad's hands, and we'll likely miss the ripe tomatoes. He's promised to freeze some, hopefully that will work! This update is a little longer for that reason. 

The popcorn is looking promising with as many as 3 cobs on some stalks! I have never grown corn before, we shall see if the beetles or raccoons eat them before we get to them.

The purple beans have been decimated by the bunnies. A small handful every day is all I get.

The beans in the back are starting, but it's such a jungle I can barely see the green beans to harvest them. Next year I'm going purple all the way for pole beans!

 

All in all the new front garden is doing very well! You can see a large rhubarb in the foreground, that thing has grown gangbusters, it started out pretty meek and tiny! Giant sunflowers in the back, purple pole beans tall, and corn behind it even taller. Jungle of 5 tomato plants, that's all I did because I thought of it as a trial run.

 

I have a lot of squashes, which I have never grown before because the back plot is too wet for them. They are doing well, the cucumbers not as much. Maybe they get TOO much sun? Some of them look a little shriveled up.

 

In the empty pea bed, I seeded radish and lettuce, which is sprouting after just 2 days!

The hummingbird, butterfly and bee garden is thriving.  My middle child is, too :-) We had a goldfinch visit with the flowers today, too. Yellow!!!

Whacky volunteer squashes, probably not for human consumption, but I'll figure the chickens will like the seed?

This volunteer is inching over to the empty pea trellis, and below is a spot with fresh carrot seeds, planted where we harvested the potatoes already.

 The berries continue having a good year - I expanded my raspberry row a tiny bit, because I couldn't bear to throw away the suckers. There are signs of hope, some new healthy looking shoots in the blackberries, too. Hopefully I'll see more growth over the next few weeks, so that there will be fruiting canes for next season. No picture, but we're getting a small bowl of blueberries every 2 days or so, and more to come.

Stays enemy #1 though I think I see fewer of them now?

That's it for garden updates for a while, I bet I'll be amazed when I get home in a few weeks. We will see if will be shock or awe :-)

squirreling (Ich sammle Farben fuer den Winter)

Today, we squirreled away a whole bunch of seeds for now (carrots, radishes, lettuce) and next year (tomatoes, flowers, radishes, peppers, melons). I've always had near 100% germination, even with year-old seeds, and I always have too many seedlings anyway, because I can never help myself with all that pent up gardening energy in March...

We met friends at a local farm, where the kids' program was cancelled due to inclement weather, so the kids spent the time squirreling wild blackberries and peach drops instead.

 I squirreled away the notion that organic peach trees appear possible around here, after all, and tasted the most delicious unripe peach I've ever crunched on. Maybe I'll shop around for some additions to the orchard?

Uh oh. I got as far as calling the number and learning that these are Nigerian Dwarf goats which seem to me the perfect breed: Small, and oh so cute, but good milk goats with a very rich milk that is apparently great for cheese making. And gentle, fun and great with kids, they're reported to be, too. Uh oh. I think I may have squirreled away another dream for the future, because making it a reality this year is unlikely. But I'll be happy to just have something to look forward to!

We squirreled away a treat of bakery cookies earlier today, to be shared with friends in the back of the van during the pouring rain that ended our stay at the farm. 

Today made me think of the children's book Frederick by Leo Lionni. Frederick is accused of slacking in his winter preparations by his fellow mice, when in fact he's preparing in a different way. He collects sun rays, colors and words, to be shared when the world outside would turn dreary and gray. Frederick is a poet and a dreamer.

I think Frederick is on to something: Yes, it's the season to put up the harvest. We can, freeze, dry and preserve. But there's more to it than that. I'm collecting everything I'm learning, but won't be able to put into action for another season. All those ideas I come across, I'll churn and mull them over. Collecting dreams, plans, inspiration. Putting up memories of summer, community, friendship.

Drama Queens

It's been a while since the last bee update. Hive inspections are getting more cumbersome, with so many layers to deal with now! Plus the heat, and being dressed in the crazy suit.

After all the queen drama in the left hive, things seem to be going well. At the last inspection, I was able to find the unmarked new queen, that made this new beek mighty proud. I then attempted unsuccessfully to mark her. Luckily I didn't damage her in that process, as evidenced by the fact that in this weekend's inspection, the brood boxes were full of fresh eggs, larvae and capped brood. A little bit of honey is starting to be collected in the super I put on a few weeks ago. No drama queen there!

A different picture in the other hive. This hive is the one that was on its second commercial queen already, after having started out with a drone layer. It appears that the bees decided they didn't like this queen so much after all... she's gone. No eggs, no larvae. On the upside, I found a few queen cells (in the center of the next picture, three in a row, and one a bit separate). Not high and mighty in size, but hopefully at least one will hatch into a queen that's fit for this picky bunch of bees! I won't know for a few weeks, just like last time, waiting for the virgin queen's mating flights and then a few days to see her first eggs. It's a waiting game! The population seem healthy in size, and the bees were calm and docile, which I took as a good sign.

The queen drama this summer has been something I didn't expect from beekeeping, though I am greatly enjoying how much I'm learning in the process. I was so pleased to be able to recognize an unmarked queen for the first time. In fact, only a week or so later, we visited a museum with an observation hive on Cape Cod, and I was able to figure out that this hive, too, was in transition in between queens! I found the new virgin queen, which had the local beekeeper very excited since he hadn't even spied her yet himself! I'm starting to feel initiated, although I'm sure I'll continue to learn more and more every season.

Can't leave off without showing you 'bearding' - it's what bees do to be cool. Bee cool, hah! (I've been told it's a sign of a beginner beekeeper to keep making 'bee' jokes.... I'll own that until I tire of it!).

See that pile of bees hanging off the bottom board on the right hive? Here's a close up:

My bees have screen bottom boards, so they have ventilation from the bottom of the hive, and plenty of room with the extra super on, so bearding isn't a problem in and of itself. If you ever see it live, don't worry! It's just what bees do to hang out and chill.