Tart Cherry Cake

This is an old (1950's?) recipe from one of Mom's friends. The cake is heavy and dense, almost like a fruitcake. The original recipe called for a can of sour cherries, and was baked in a loaf pan. When I'd make this as a child, for the family, Mom had me use a 9"x13" pan, which works great. While canned or jarred tart cherries (NOT pie filling) can be used, I like to use fresh-picked cherries from my Montmorency tart cherry tree. Frozen tart cherries work fine too.

Tart Cherry Cake (9"x13")


2 tablespoons butter (I use Smart Balance spread)
1½ cups sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1½ cups flour (I use whole wheat)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1½ teaspoons baking soda
shake salt (original recipe's words)
1 24 oz. can tart cherries (NOT pie filling), drained OR 3 cups pitted fresh or frozen tart cherries
1½ cups nuts (I use chopped walnuts)

Preheat oven 350ºF. Grease and flour 9"x13"pan.

You can just dump everything into a bowl and use a mixer OR use standard scratch cake procedure: cream butter with sugar, add eggs, add dry ingredients, add cherries, mix well until batter forms, add nuts. Spread batter in prepared pan, bake 35-40 minutes (toothpick test). Cool.


Enjoy!

Figs in Northern Nevada

I got out today, and gathered up the rest of my hoses. It was windy, but not too cold, so the hoses were still somewhat pliable. I don't have room to store them inside anywhere, so I coil them up into piles on a couple of pallets on the north side of the shed, and then cover them with a tarp for the winter.

The storm moving in tonight was expected to bring rain, turning to snow before morning. I took a gamble, that it won't get too cold, and left the fig trees out. Please note: figs are not a normal plant for this area. I inherited my two potted trees about 10 years ago, and have been babying them ever since.

They can take temps down to about 25F before it kills the top growth. I know that because I lost the trunks once, but the roots survived. This time of year, I put the pots in the wagon and move them into the garage on the really cold nights. But all the nights are getting too cold now, and I need them to finally go dormant. I don't want to just pull the leaves off. I want to make sure the tree gets the signals that it's time to drop its leaves and shut down for the winter. Then I can move them down into the cellar until spring.

I'm also chancing losing my chard and kale, as I left them uncovered tonight too. They can take it down to about 25F as well, so I'll be checking the min/max thermometer first thing tomorrow morning. I'm hoping the cloud cover from the storm moderates the cold tonight.

Hostess Gift? Ok, Check the Pantry

Heavy snow last Friday caused a friend to cancel a planned holiday get-together. Then, a break in the weather allowed her a last-minute rescheduling for last night. I worked yesterday, plus am trying to get a bit of daily exercise out walking with the dog each day (the little stars on my calendar signify at least 30 minutes activity - I'm really trying to make it a daily habit). This left me but a little time to put together a hostess gift, but I was sure I could figure out something.

I like giving people something I've made when I can manage it. Let's see - what do I have in the pantry? I label my canned goods with the date, and while jelly from a couple of years ago is just fine for us, I think gifts should be the freshest and best. This year wasn't the best harvest for a wide variety of goodies. Hmmm - besides, a jar of tomato sauce or a couple of sour pickles just isn't going to cut it. I really think a holiday hostess gift should be a bit more festive than utilitarian, and still be something she'd like, too. Something she could either add to her party table, or set aside for personal use later. Aha! how about a dried fruit platter?

I have some great dried fruits - harvested at the peak of ripeness from my own trees. Growing fruit in the high desert is feast or famine - late Spring frosts often mean no harvest at all. So in the years when we do manage to get fruit to set, it often ends up being a bumper crop. And our hot, dry summers are perfect for drying fruit; while quite heating up the kitchen with a big pot of boiling canning water, not so attractive. Another plus: when properly stored, dried fruites hold onto that great taste for years.

The big tins in my pantry hold bags of wonderful dried fruit. Pulling them out, I quickly put together a tasty mixture of sizes, textures, and colors - pie cherries, plums, apricots, raisins, peaches, and pumpkin pie leather - little labels for each (the apples and pears, other leathers, are great too - but I ran out of room on the plate). When I gave it to her at the door, she graciously added it to her table. Bits of dried fruit look deceptively small - each bite is packed with flavor and fiber; too rich to eat by the handfuls. There was enough for everyone's snacking throughout the party, plus plenty left for her to enjoy later too.

Spring Bulb Bed

It's been a pretty busy week - things to do and weather-wise. Around here, especially this time of year, they say that if you don't like the weather just wait five minutes and it'll change. Since my last post about the fog, we've had sunshine up in the 70's, rain, horrific winds, and even another snowstorm.

I love this photo, taken through my living room window. The rain and reflections on the deck look like an Impressionist painting, and the late Spring bulbs now blooming in the herb bed are so pretty. Tulips are really hard to grow around here. Not because of the weather, but because of the ground squirrels. They'll dig up and eat every tulip, and I've lost hyacinths to them too. But this bed (knock on wood) has done great for years - long enough that the original single bulbs have all multiplied into beautiful clumps.

I'm not sure why these have survived. The ground squirrels (not pretty, fluffy-tailed tree squirrels - these are burrowing, scruffy-tailed rat-like squirrels) are still out there, scouting around under the bird feeders, dashing for their holes under the wood pile when I let the dog out. I know the squirrels won't touch daffodils, and when I planted these bulbs I mixed all different kinds together, tossed them out onto the ground, and then planted each one where it landed. Maybe having the daffodils scattered throughout, besides giving me an extended and ever-changing show each Spring, also deters the squirrels from the tastier tulip bulbs.

Or maybe it's the perennial herbs that are just now coming up. Oregano and marjoram are a dense green carpet now, thyme, rosemary, and chives in small clumps, and a big clump of tarragon. As summer gets closer, they'll take over, hiding the withering leaves of the bulbs. Right outside my kitchen door, this little garden is a joy throughout the year. A wandering line of round stepping stones, a few rocks, a cement sculpted turtle, and some hollyhocks for vertical interest makes a wonderful view, sitting out on the deck in the morning sun.

Or some days it's better from inside looking out, and a warm fire going in the wood stove. Day before yesterday, the cherry blossoms were capped with snow. Right now, I'm not sure whether I'll be getting any fruit this year, or not. The night temperatures have only dropped right around freezing, not much below, and the snow might even have provided an insulating layer. We're a bit above the valley floor, so the coldest temps slide on down the hill, past us. So, even with these snowy photos, there's still a chance the blooms will set some fruit. One can always hope.

Chickens in the Mist

Yesterday morning's snow turned to rain by nightfall, melting the snow and giving us a rare high-desert sight to wake up to - morning fog. I was glad I wasn't out on the roads. They had to close the entire length of our new state highway bypass, both directions, for about 90 minutes this morning - the icy roads and heavy fog caused multiple accidents. Aries said his commute up to the lake wasn't too bad - as soon as he started to climb the pass, he was out of the fog and the road just wet in the rising sun.

Before lunchtime, it had pretty much burned off here too, and proceeded to warm up into a really nice day. I got my little indoor seedlings thinned, writing about it for my turn to post on the Simple Green Frugal Co-op blog. For the past few cold and grey days, I'd moved the hardier seedlings in under the lights with the tender ones. But with the sun coming out, no wind, and today's beautiful warm temperatures, I put them out on the deck in the sun. Tonight, they're back inside, on the kitchen counter. I want to let them get a little bit bigger before setting them out in the garden. More storms are still in our forecast, and I haven't been able to get the planting bed ready anyway.

As usual, I don't know what kind of fruit crop I'll get this year. The plums are all in full bloom, and the Asian pears and the sweet cherry have just started. Despite the snow, the temperatures haven't dropped too far below freezing, and the wet just might have insulated the blossoms a bit. I saw some bees on the Oregon Grape this afternoon. I've been watching for them, and it's nice to know a hive still survives somewhere nearby.

April Showers

We woke up this morning to four inches of fresh snow. They say Eskimos are supposed to have lots of different words for snow, but so do I (no, and not those kinds of words, either).

When I lived in Leadville Colorado, the high altitude and below-zero temperatures would produce the famed champagne powder - a light, fluffy snow, so dry it wouldn't even pack into snowballs. But in April in Nevada, we get Sierra cement - sloppy, wet, heavy stuff. Pack this stuff, and you have slushballs.

Luckily, cold temperatures have kept the trees and bushes from leafing out much as of yet. Most of my trees bear the scars from May snowfalls. The only casualties so far this Spring have been the earliest apricot and forsythia blooms. And we do need the water. Our 7 inches annual precipitation almost all comes in the form of snow, so it's now or never for this year.

Brewing Hard Apple Cider

Many, many years ago, I took a trip to rural Iowa (where the pigs each had a patio) with a native farm boy. It was in the fall, cider pressing time, something I'd never seen before. I was surprised that they used all the apples - not just the perfect ones plucked right from the tree. They used the bruised windfalls, the bird-damaged, and the wormy ones. Dumped into a washtub for a quick rinse, then into the grinder, down into the big round slatted press, and the cider came pouring out the spout. It was absolutely the best stuff I'd ever tasted.

Now, I have my own apple trees. Every once in a while, we'll get enough apples to make the bother of pressing cider worthwhile. Just for the record, we're not just making a couple of glasses of juice - we're going for five gallons to ferment into hard cider, plus extra to drink now.

You don't use early summer apples to make cider - they don't have enough sugars. I make applesauce out of my excess early apples. Late apples, the ones that ripen late in the year, the ones otherwise known as storage apples, make the best cider. This year, my Macintosh and Liberty apples set a lot of small fruit, too small to bother peeling and coring, but perfect for cider. We let them set for a week to soften and sweeten a bit - even longer would have been better, but since it's partly an outside activity we watch the weather too. Yesterday, we decided it was cider time.

Aries starts outside, cleaning and setting up our press on the edge of the deck. Basically, it's an open rectangular frame, a small rock underneath the back edge to tip it forward a bit. The bottom plate has ridges that allow the juice to flow beneath. To lessen leaking, he lines the bottom plate with plastic wrap, taped to hold it in place. He sets the plate into place within the frame, a catch bucket underneath the spout with a lid to cover it (to keep the yellowjackets out - they'll be here as soon as the juice starts flowing).

The first step in pressing cider is to grind the apples into little bits. The same old neighbor that gave me my 1970's-era dehydrator also gave me an equally ancient juicer. It weighs a ton, but the metal grinding teeth do an excellent job on the apples. It also has solid plate to use instead of the juice screen across the juice spout, so it will just push all the apple mush out the end spout (or maybe you'd prefer the "bucket & sledge hammer" option, here).

Once I've got the juicer/grinder all put together, I set a bucket on a stool under the spout to catch the ground apples. We also make beer, so I line the catch bucket with a nylon mesh bag normally used for boiling the grain in beer-making (we have two bags, making the process a bit faster). The solid plate leaks a bit, so I put a small bowl underneath that too. The less leaks, the better - apple juice is so sticky, and my kitchen floor is going to be a disaster zone soon enough anyway.

Everything in place, we're ready for the apples. The apples are dumped into the sink full of water for a quick wash, piled into a tub, and then roughly chopped into pieces small enough to fit through the small hopper of the grinder. Aries chops, I feed handfuls at a time into the hopper. A friend, Micah, stops by, so we give him a knife too, and he starts chopping on the other side of the counter.

Once there's quite a bit of crushed apples in the bag, Aries takes the bucket outside. He twists the mesh bag closed and puts it on the press. He dumps any extra juice out of my bucket and gives it back to me. This is where the second bag comes in handy. I can take that bucket back inside, line it with the other bag, and get right back to grinding apples.

Meanwhile, Aries puts the smooth-faced top plate over the bag, topping that with a small jack. As he starts jacking up the jack, it presses against the top of the frame, squeezing the mush between the top and bottom plates. The juice flows through the spout into the catch bucket. When the spout stops flowing, he covers the catch bucket, loosens the jack, and removes the top plate. The bag of almost dry apple mush, now called pomace, is emptied into a waiting wheelbarrow (and later given to the chickens). Aries comes back inside to continue chopping.

Just like when making beer, sanitation while fermenting hard cider is very important. You want only the things you purposely put into the fermenting bucket in there, and everything else kept out. Wild yeasts present in the air can ruin a batch, giving it a bad flavor, as can the bacteria on a dishcloth. Bleach is a good sanitizer, so we previously rinsed the fermenting bucket and lid with a weak bleach solution, then kept it closed up until we're ready to fill it from the catch bucket of cider.

From about two bushels of small, otherwise unusable apples, we get almost six gallons of cider - a little over five in the fermenter, almost a gallon for the refrigerator. For the hard cider, we decide to add only extra sugar and a packet of champagne yeast. I heat up some of the cider and add four pounds dark brown sugar, stirring until it's all dissolved, and then put that back into the fermenter. Stirring with a sterilized spoon to aerate it a bit, Aries adds the yeast then snaps the lid on tight and puts a fermentation lock, filled with a bit of vodka, into the top. By this morning, the escaping gases caused by the yeast turning the sugars into alcohol have started burbling up through the lock. Fermentation has begun.

Oh, and the fresh stuff for drinking now? Aries likes to pour his off the top without disturbing what's settled, but I like to shake it up before I pour a glass. There's so much fiber in unfiltered apple juice I almost feel like I should chew it. And it's so filling - four ounces is almost more than I can drink at one time. It's sooooo good.

A Change in the Weather

When I got up this morning, the barometer had dropped, big-time. By mid-morning the wind had come up so badly I could hardly see across the valley for all the blowing dust. Yesterday, knowing this was in the forecast, I picked tomatoes and peppers, then drafted Aries to help me get the grapes and pears. So this is what my kitchen counter looked like this morning.

And it still looks like that tonight. I had a dentist appointment this morning, and then Pilates. The chair of our fundraising golf tournament committee brought over all the money from the day of the tournament plus all the sponsors' checks she'd been holding in case we had to cancel the tournament. So this afternoon it took me more than an hour to get a deposit slip made out, everything totaled up, and the books brought up to date.

We also have to be out of the building donated to us for the Rummage Sale by the end of the month. Other members have taken care of cleaning out everything that didn't sell, but the sign guy that said he'd take my sign off the windows never did. Tomorrow is supposed to be a lot colder, so if I'm gonna be slopping around with a bucket and sponge, this afternoon was going to be the best time to do it. So after getting the deposit to the bank, I swung by the storefront and washed the paint off the windows.

I'd already gotten the last of the Burbank Red Ace plums picked a couple of days ago. That's a wonderful plum - if I only had one plum tree, it would be that one (but it needs a pollinator - Starking Delicious is almost as good, and although that tree was almost killed by rabbits walking on deep snowpack one year, girdling it two feet above the ground, it spouted back from lower on the trunk and blooms enough to keep me in plenty of plums about every third year or so). The Burbank has a weeping form, so needs more space than an upright tree, but sets lovely big red firm juicy plums that ripen incrementally over almost a month's time.

I eat them right from the tree whenever I'm out in the yard starting in late August, and then dry whatever the birds leave me by late September. Cut in half around the equator (easier to tip and twist the pit out) they're better than any prunes you'd buy in the store. I packed away two gallon bags full of dried plums, leaving a little bowl of those not-quite-dry enough out to snack on now. Next into the dehydrator will be the grapes in that big grey tub. The tomatoes I'll can as whole tomatoes, and most of the bell peppers I'll freeze cut into 1" pieces - that's on my schedule for tomorrow.

Junior was still setting her nest out in front, but she was right under the eave of the shed, and if the rain comes it would be dripping right on her. So after getting all the grapes off the grapevine that grows on the side of the dog run/brood pen, I got the pen all set up with food, water, and a nice little protected nest. Last night, in the dark, we scooped up Junior and all her eggs and put her on the nest I'd made up. She settled in ok, and this morning was still there. We'll give her a few more days setting time - at least now she's a bit more out of the weather, just in case anybody hatches.

Temperatures are dropping, but it's not supposed to freeze tonight. But I decided to cover the tomatoes and some of the pepper plants, just in case. So just before dark I got out my bin of old draperies. If I can protect the plants during the September cold snaps, we'll often get a spate of Indian Summer weather in October - long enough to ripen a few more vegetables before everything has to be inside or perish. The really cold weather is supposed to be Wednesday and Thursday nights, so I'll see what it does tonight before deciding to cover everything tomorrow, or just pick it all.

As long as I'm blathering on about my harvest, I have something really bizarre out there this year. In June, when I was thinning the apples, I cut back one of my apple trees that had long whippy branches, hoping to shape it into more fruiting spurs and a stronger branch structure in the future. Some of those headed-back branches are blossoming now, in September. Of course, those blossoms will get frozen any day now, but I think it's so strange that even though this tree set a nice crop of apples that we just picked a few weeks ago, it's trying to make another crop without having gone through any chilling period or dormancy. The only thing I can think is that the daylight hours are now the same as they'd be during the Spring Equinox, normal blooming time. Has anyone ever heard of such a thing?

Peach Salsa

I had a day to myself with no outside commitments today. A couple of weeks ago, I'd changed my decor over to fall colors (my favorites), and have been slowly getting the summer stuff cleaned and stored away. The table linens and kitchen items I can wash at home, but the summer bed quilts are too big for my washing machine. It was going to be a beautiful warm day with little wind, so the first thing I did was gather up the quilts and blankets (and our sleeping bags too - after camping for a week at Tahoe I might as well) and headed to the other end of town to a laundromat that has big 50-pound front-loading washers.

The sleeping bags I dried there for a while - they fluff up better when tumble-dried. The attendant even offered me six tennis balls to put in with them - soaking up a bit more moisture, and pummeling the bag fillings to fluff them up even more. The blankets and quilts are all cotton, so I brought them home damp to dry out on the clothesline. I love the smell of sun-dried cotton bedding, and I'd rather not beat up my quilts any more than necessary.

So, once home and with everything hung outside to dry, it was time to finish up processing peaches and chiles. A few days ago, I'd had time to peel and chop the peaches. I've measured 2-pint increments in my enameled pot, and notched an old wooden spoon handle - fifteen pounds of peaches ended up being a little over 11 pints. I'd sprinkled the top layer with lime juice and put the whole thing into the refrigerator until I had time to make a batch of salsa. I'm probably not going to have enough tomatoes to make a tomato salsa this year - all I have will be canned as whole tomatoes and tomato sauce. So this peach salsa will be my only salsa.

I put the peaches on to start cooking them down a bit (using a flame-tamer over my gas burner), and 9 pint jars into a canner-ful of water to start heating up to sterilize. I checked the freezer - might as well clean out all peppers left from last year. I had a few chiles left, plus a couple of roasted and peeled bell peppers and some sliced jalapenos. Thawed and minced up, they made up almost a cup, so I'd only need another cup for the salsa. The rest of the chiles from this year's harvest could go into the freezer.

The chiles I'd roasted a couple of days ago had been stored in the bag in the refrigerator, so I put on some (latex surgical) gloves and started on them. The big straight chiles are easiest to clean. Each one I folded into a little "packet" and put on a cookie sheet to freeze. Afterwards, dumped into a freezer bag, it's easy to grab however much I want at a time. The littler chiles, and the curved ones that got mashed and broken while roasting, I added to the measuring cup to use right away.

Peach (or Nectarine) Salsa (makes 8-9 pints)
12 - 15 pounds peaches (or nectarines), peeled and chopped
2 cups onions, finely diced (I used red onions, for the color)
2 cups chiles or peppers, roasted, peeled and chopped, or seeded and minced if fresh
2 tablespoons minced fresh garlic
2 bunches cilantro, minced (makes about 1 cup)
2 tablespoons non-iodized salt
2 tablespoons sugar (optional, to taste)
up to 1 tablespoon hot pepper powder (optional, to taste)

lime juice

Simmer peaches, cooking down to about 9 pints. Add rest of ingredients, except for lime juice. Cook down to about 9 pints.

Put 1 tablespoon lime juice in each sterilized pint jar. Fill jars, to 1/4" headspace, seal. Process in boiling water bath 30 minutes (that's for my Carson City altitude, at 5,000 feet; process for 20 minutes if you're below 3,000, or add 5 more minutes for each 2,000 feet above 6,000).

A few additional notes: To make a milder or hotter salsa, do not change the amount of chile peppers, change the type. You can use all roasted and peeled bell peppers for a really mild salsa, or add some minced habaneros if you really want to to get crazy. I added a tablespoon of chipotle powder to this batch - it added a nice smoky complexity to the sweet and hot, but also darkened the color quite a bit. I also seeded and minced up some fresh jalapenos I'd just picked - just to add a bit more texture and color - enough to bring the amount up to two cups. One of these years, I'm thinking I'll just grind up the peaches without peeling them - might make it even more colorful.

Peachy-keen, Jellybean

I love tree-ripened peaches. My dad planted a couple of peach trees when I was a kid, and I was thereafter spoiled for supermarket peaches. I'll see them in the store and they look pretty, but there's no aroma. You can take them home and they'll soften, but they never will taste like peaches. I want my peaches still warm from the sun, eaten right there next to the tree, bending over to keep the juice from dripping down my shirt.

I have a couple of peach trees, but because of our typical tricky Spring weather, here they're an every-third or -fourth year type of crop. My mature nectarine tree set a crop this year, but then succumbed to borers (I'm just heartsick - they're in my pie cherry tree too). Aries cut it down today, but left a sprout that came up from the roots so I'll have to see what comes from that before digging it out completely. I have a pitiful twisted little July Elberta peach tree trying to hang in there. I got about 1/2 bushel of peaches from it three weeks ago. I managed to get a few trays of slices into the dehydrator, and have been stuffing myself on fresh peaches daily since then.

And then, there's what I call the Seedling peach tree. I don't know what kind it is. It just sprouted one summer under the edge of our woodpile. I figure a squirrel buried a seed it stole from somewhere - I don't think it's an Elberta, because its fruit ripens almost a month later. I transplanted the little seedling to the edge of the garden, and then out in the orchard. It's since grown into a nice tree. It lost a couple of branches to borers this year, but is still doing pretty good. I've been testing and tasting, patiently waiting for those peaches to get ripe and hoping the birds will leave me some (I hung a bunch of junk CD's in the branches - hoping the sun glinting as they turn in the wind will frighten them off).

Finally, it was peach-picking day today. The bird-pecked ones I cut into chunks and put into the dehydrator (no room in my freezer). I gave my neighbor a bagful, and made a batch of jam this afternoon. I've set aside 15 pounds for a batch of salsa, and have enough to gorge myself on for a couple more weeks. Eating seasonally from my own labors means I've got to get my fresh peach fix when I can. Oh, but they're soooooo good while they last!

Start the Water Boiling - It's Applesauce Time

So, my canning season has started. I don't get fruit crops every year, depending on how our late Spring frosts hit, but this year have various apples, pears, Asian pears, plums, peaches, and red grapes. I dry a lot of my fruits, make bumper crops into hard cider, freeze some things, and can a bit. Canning a batch or two of applesauce is on my must-do list every year.

The birds and ground squirrels got all my Gravenstein apples (and most of the Italian prune plums). But the Freedom apples weren't far behind in the ripening schedule and for some reason haven't been as badly attacked (yet). I've hung junk CD's in the branches of most of my fruit trees, hoping the sunlight flashing off the shiny sides twisting in the breeze will startle the birds away, and Aries put up a pole for a whirly-gig too.

I pruned the tree quite a bit earlier this year to open up its shape, and thinned the fruit set while I was at it. So I have some nicely-sized fruit, easy to reach, and very little insect damage. The apples have a nice flavor and crunch for just eating out of hand, but are also supposed to be good for juice and sauce.

I had two half-pints of applesauce left in my pantry. Two days ago, I picked a couple big bowlfuls of the Freedom apples, and sat down in front of a movie on TV to quarter, core, and peel them all. I got them all prepped, soaking in a lemon juice solution, and then had to get ready to go work a tourist outing up at Lake Tahoe. So I put the whole pot into the refrigerator for the night. Yesterday, I drained the apples, put an inch or so of apple juice into the pan, covered it, and started them simmer/steaming. I'd already checked - I had plenty of lids on hand, so I got out a bunch of empty half-pints (the best applesauce size for the two of us), and got lots of jars and rings into my big canner full of water, and started that to heating.

When the apples were soft, I mashed them with a potato masher right in the pot (no sugar, no spices, just apples cooked in a bit of juice - I can always dress it up when I open up individual jars). I've cut notches in 2-pint increments into the handle of a wooden spoon. By standing that up in a pot of sauce I know how many jars it will fill. Even so, I don't put the lids into the hot water until after I have all my jars filled - no use prepping ones I won't need. I had enough for 16 half-pints. Hot jars are filled with hot applesauce to 1/4" headspace, rims wiped clean, hot lids and rings applied.

Our well water is a bit hard, so I always put a splash of vinegar in the water bath water. I process the jars, in the covered canner with water an inch over the top of the top layer of jars, for 10 minutes after the water comes back to a simmer. Set out on my cutting board, I leave them overnight to cool, listening for the lovely "plunk" (they used to "ping" - I think they've changed the thickness or center-shape of the lids in the past few years) as each jar seals.

This morning, all had sealed (yay!). The rings aren't necessary for storing sealed jars - I remove them and, once washed, keep them in a box under the counter. When I empty and then clean a jar, I put an old lid upside-down (to keep the old sealing compound from sticking to the rim) topped with a ring for storage - protecting the rim and keeping the empty jar clean (just hate dealing with boxes of dusty jars, with dead spiders in them). I give the sealed jars a quick rinse under cool running water, dry them off, and stick a little label with item and date on the lid (Mom just writes the date on the lid with a grease pencil). I don't have a big central canned goods storage area - each item has its own particular place. Nineteen jars of applesauce fit into the bottom of an old bread box in my little pantry - just about what the two of us will use in a year.

To-Do List; Plus Urban Chickens

I dug my garlic last night. It's a bit earlier than usual, and it never did fall over like it usually does when it's getting ready to harvest. It just dried up, still standing in place. But the bulbs are nice, big ones and are now out on a rack in the shade drying out a bit. The cloves on some of the driest ones started to separate, and some even have little bulblets growing inside the stem just above the main bulb (never seen that before). Those won't store well, and can't be braided so they'll get used first. But I think after a day or two, the rest can still be cleaned and braided to finish curing. I do so like the look of a garlic braid in my pantry.

The whole month of June was cooler and wetter than normal here. Most of the salad greens are still doing great (the arugula, spinach, and a red leaf lettuce have bolted, starting to flower). I'm harvesting whole lettuce plants every other day - for me, for friends and neighbors, and some for the chickens too. The snap and snow peas are starting to produce, and the English peas should be ready soon, if they can withstand the July heat. The corn, beans, and squashes are up and just starting to grow; the fruiting bed is slow getting going.

I'll be spending the holiday weekend pretty close to home - I've got lots to do to keep me busy. Here's my yard & garden to-do list:

Get the netting over the Reliance grape - soon! if I want grapes, and raisins, this year.

Pick, pit, and process more pie cherries - I've got a bowlful dehydrating on screens in the sun, but the ones on the inside branches are almost ripe.


Pick raspberries - these are new plants I got from a friend last summer, so they haven't set much of a crop, but there are a few red ones down low on the branches that grew last year.

Cut and dry oregano and marjoram. I made that the subject of today's post, just written and posted, over on the SGF Co-op blog - which is why I'm still inside on the computer.

Pack more straw around potato plants, and fill in bare spots in the row with the last of the ones from last year sprouting in the cellar.

Thin fruit, head back overlong branches, and remove suckers on the fruit trees. I did the Freedom apple a couple of days ago - it hadn't been pruned for a couple of years. The Gravenstein should be thinned, and then the Liberty and Macintosh. The Asian pears and plums need it too. There are dead branches (borer damage) on the nectarine and peach trees that need to be removed - those trees aren't looking too good (they're about 20 years old), so it's time to start thinking about replacements.

Get the extra tomato and pepper plants off the deck table. I need to either call the neighbors that said they wanted them, plant them outside my fence as u-pick freebies, or put them out of their misery.

Weeding, weeding, and more weeding - I got around the brassicas and the early bed looks good. I just wear my Ipod set on Shuffle, sit cross-legged on a foam weeding pad, scoot it along the row, and hand-weed around each plant. It's easiest after the soaker hose has run the night before, and I have to admit, I do enjoy the satisfying crunch/pop when you pull a weed out by the roots.

But I can hardly see the beets and carrots (they need thinning too, as does the strawberry patch). The fruiting bed really needs it next, especially inside the Wall-o-Waters (the nice little micro-climate inside is also very conducive to weed growth). It will be easier if I get the WoW's off first and then just do it all at once. The corn could use a quick going-over with the hula hoe before I hill-up the plants, and I should run it around the squashes before they really take off. I can't believe some people actually grow purslane intentionally! Sure, it's tasty, but here it grows like the weed it is!

Oh! and one other little interesting item: urban chickens are now legal in Carson City! My birds have always been legal, since our lot is larger than an acre. I've been interviewed a couple of times regarding urban chickens though, and always helped push for changing the ordinance. Our City Supervisors did just that yesterday - allowing up to four hens or ducks (no roosters), or two pot-bellied pigs up to 150 pounds each (the mayor has one - he abstained from the vote) anywhere in the city. It's now safe for some chickens I know of to come out of hiding!

Save Some Cherries for Me!

Frost nailed the blossoms on our sweet cherry tree this Spring, so no black cherries for us this year. We have a standard-size self-pollinating one. It's 25 years old, and I think it's called a Garden Bing Cherry. The aphids go really go for this tree though, at least until they die off in the summer heat. I've looked occasionally at other sweet cherry trees, but any Bings I've seen are either extra-dwarf or need a pollinator. I might have to try a Sweetheart Cherry - they're supposed to be a really late bloomer and self-fruitful as well. Anyone have any experience with them - especially in zone 5-6?

I also have a Montmorency pie cherry tree, and this year's crop is looking pretty good. They're just starting to color up - it'll be time to start picking in a few more days. So I needed to get the bird-scare tape out there. If you get the tape on the tree too early, the birds get used to it; too late and they'll clean-pick the tree just before the cherries get ripe (notice in the bottom photo: the earliest-ripening cherries, in the top of the tree getting the most sun, are already almost gone). Scare tape is a flexible shiny 1" wide tape; some red on one side and silver on the other, this particular roll is silver with holographic angles that flash different colors in the sun (beware: 8-year old neighbor girls find it fascinating - they'll be asking to steal the tape right off your tree).

I headed out to the tree with the tape and some scissors. The birds have started on the upper-most cherries - only bare pits left clinging to the branches. But I find it a bit odd that the ground underneath the tree is also littered with pits - birds don't usually drop the pits. Cutting long strips to flap and flash in the sun, I tie one end (with a loose overhand knot - I reuse the tape all summer, moving the pieces to other trees as their fruit ripens) to outside branches all around the tree. Then I duck under the branches, adding a few more strips hanging down the inside. I step back to see if there are any glaring tape-free sections. And am a bit startled to notice a ground squirrel, high up, clinging to a thin top branch, holding perfectly still. I've been out there at least 20 minutes - I can't believe he's been swaying over my head all this time.

He was still holding so still - not even blinking. I got a stick and reached up to tap him to make sure he was still alive. That was enough to scare him down out of there and off into the brush. I don't mind sharing my harvest - the birds will get the cherries above where the scare tape is, and there should be enough this year to put out the "free u-pick" sign for the neighbors too. But I've found that once ground squirrels (not cute fluffy-tailed tree squirrels - these are more like rats with scruffy tails) get a taste of something, they won't share with me. So I put the little plastic owl in the lowest crotch of the tree, hung a few mirrors on the bigger branches, and got out the box trap - time for greedy squirrels to go bye-bye (and since yesterday, I've "relocated" three to over by the creek away from any other houses - plenty of cover, natural food and water). Oh boy, cherry time! Dried (my favorite!), pie, flavored vinegar, and maybe even enough to try making some hard cherry cider?

April Update

Now that that Spring is peeping 'round the corner, I've been busy out and about. This means more things than ever to post about, and less time to post.

Monday was Aries' birthday, so I made him an apple pie (he'd rather have that than a cake). I used an unknown variety of apple, gleaned from an old tree in the old part of town (probably planted some time between 1880 and 1920), stored in the cellar since fall. The apples have kept well, and made a wonderful pie. After reading the post by Matron of Husbandry about grafting fruit trees, one of my projects this summer will be to grow out some crabapple shoots to use for grafting stock for scions I'll cut from that old tree next January. It's a wonderful apple - does well here, stores well, and works for applesauce, pies, and fresh eating. By grafting to crabapple rootstock, I'm thinking I can have those apples in a smaller-size tree in my own orchard.

I've started doing Pilates a couple of times a week. Each day after, I've been a bit sore but feel good about doing something for myself (this getting old is not for sissies). I've got this year's baby chicks out of the living room and into the dog run full-time now, moving the dog crate into the doghouse out there to shut them up in at night for predator-protection (great horned owls live in the pine trees across the street). I've started my garden seedlings in the bedroom, so made a lights set-up using a couple of old shop lights, drapery rods, a plank, and ladderback chairs. My daffodils are in full bloom outside. Some big double ones are too heavy for their stalks, so I use those for bouquets inside. I think a single blossom floating in an antique dessert dish on the bathroom counter looks like a water lily. Tomorrow, Oz-time, is my turn over at the SGF Co-op blog, so I posted about my pepper plans for this year. I've got a chicken roasting in the oven for dinner, and I'm off to Reno for a Sierra Club meeting this evening.

A Quick Update

Just a quick update before I turn everything off for Earth Hour. Nevada is notoriously slow to get on any bandwagon, but amazingly enough, it said in the paper this morning that the Capitol will go dark (and the Las Vegas Strip - that should be interesting). Carson City itself does not plan to do anything - not too surprising. Aries is resistant to turning off the television, but I think I can get him to do it again this year anyway. I have to confess, despite turning everything off in the house, we're not really cutting our electrical use down to zero. As with last year, I think we'll be out in the hot tub. It's the biggest energy-sucker in our household, but with the night temperatures below freezing I don't want to take the chance of cutting the switch on it and having it freeze up overnight. Oh well, at least it makes it easier to get Aries to turn off everything else. I guess we all have our justifications.

Missy was dead in the nest box when I went out this morning. We can't really remember how old she would have been - at least 10 - 12 years, and we think closer to 15. We buried her out in the sagebrush part of the lot.

The four baby chicks are all feathered out now, looking like half-size chickens. They spend the day out in the dog run, but with the nights still so cold I'm still bringing them into the dog crate in the living room each night. To try and get them on a daylight schedule, when I bring them in at night I've been covering their crate so they'll settle down and sleep. Maybe next week they can go outside for good.

More of my daffodils are blooming, the grape hyacinths too. There are a few more blooms on the apricot each day, but I'm not sure if they're surviving our night temps in the 20's. There were a couple of honeybees and one big black and yellow bumble bee working the blooms early this morning before the wind came up, so we might, just maybe, get apricots this year. Once the flowers get fertilized and set fruit, the fruit can take colder temperatures than the blossoms can. And I know winter isn't through with us yet.

A Taste of Spring

Rain. All day. Drizzly, drippy rain. We have a plastic skylight right above my computer chair, and I can hear it pitty-patting down. If we don't get some kind of precipitation, it's really difficult to water my trees in the winter. I have a couple of tanks we fill in the summer, with buried piping running to gravity-fed faucets out by the trees and garden. But we have to drain all that before it freezes, so I'm left with only the house faucet, dragging around a few hundred feet of hose. I'm so happy to get rain!

I'd prefer cold and snow, but will take anything. This is high-desert - we only get six or seven inches of precipitation a year, and that's in the good years. And then, usually as snow December through April, nothing at all June through September. I'm hoping the weather swings back to cold, so the fruit trees don't start to break dormancy. My trees have the highest chill hours I can find, that are still hardy enough to bear here, but every year it's a toss-up as to whether I get anything.

The chickens liked the rain. Six eggs today! Of the young girls, the two Barred Rocks are molting, so nothing from them now, and the four RI Reds are starting to slow down. But the older Amerucana crosses are starting to come back into production - we got one green and two pinkish-brown eggs today. I wonder - will I wake up to rain or snow tomorrow?

When You Get Free Apples, Make Applesauce

I didn't get much of a fruit crop this year. Just about every time something else came into bloom last Spring, we'd get another freeze. That happens more often than not, but about every three to four years we squeak by and end up with bumper crops of everything. Just not this year for my trees. However, I do know of a big old apple tree, over in the part of town built in the 1860's, on the lawn of a lawyer's office. It had a beautiful bunch of apples this year, and no one ever seems to want them. So, just before the hard freeze, Aries and I took the ladder over and picked a bushel box full (free is good - and I did take a bucketful into the office to share too).

I went through and separated out any that had blemishes - to eat now and to make a batch of applesauce (and a pie too - Aries does love apple pie). I don't know what kind of apples they are (no one else does, either), so I don't know if they'll keep very well, but I put the really nice ones down in the cellar and will keep an eye on them. If they do store well, I might try rooting a cutting (oh, I'll probably try it anyway - I don't know if it's the micro-climate where it's growing or if it is just perfectly adapted to the area, but it did set a nice crop when my trees didn't). The apples look a bit like Jonathans.

Applesauce is probably the easiest thing there is to make and can. All you need is a paring knife, a pot to cook them in, and a potato masher (apple juice, jars, and boiling water bath optional). I sat down in front of the TV to watch a movie, cut the apples into quarters, cored and peeled them and put the chunks into a pot of water with some lemon juice added. When I was ready to cook them, I drained out the water and added apple juice to cover the bottom of the pot maybe an inch. I think cooking them with juice instead of water makes for a better end product. I use a flame-tamer under the pot, and cook them with the lid on until soft. It's more steaming than boiling them. In the meantime, I get my boiling water bath heating up, sterilizing jars and rings (half-pints fit our needs best). When the apples are soft, I just mash them up with the potato masher, fill the jars to ¼", seal, and process 10 minutes after the water starts to boil again.

Pie Cherries

Due to intermittent Spring freezes, I'm not getting much of a tree-fruit crop this year (again). The black (sweet) cherry tree had only a few cherries, and the birds got most of those. No plums, no peaches, no nectarines, no pears - and only a few apples.

I did get some Montmorency pie cherries. Sometimes, that little tree will bear so heavy that I can just sit in a lawn chair underneath and pick the cherries into a bowl in my lap. Picking pie cherries is a two-handed job - pulling the branch to you with one hand and then pinching the cherries off their stems with the other. This year, there were only a few cherries here and there, so I had to move about to be able to get to them. So here's what I came up with, and it worked great! I put a big plastic bowl into the "lap" of my granny apron, and then held it in place by clothes-pinning the skirt to the bib. I was able to duck under and around the branches and found enough cherries to fill the bowl.

Since I didn't have very many cherries to play with this year, I'm only doing my most favorite pie cherry storage option. I'm drying all of them. Dried pie cherries are wonderful - tart and sweet and chewy, just like the sweetened dried cranberries (sometimes marketed as "craisins") but with no sugar, nothing, added. Plus, no heating up the kitchen canning them, no freezer dependent on continuous electric power, and only a fraction of the storage space needed to keep them indefinitely. My various dried fruits are kept in gallon bags in tins in my pantry - easy to get to for a snack, to use in cooking (dried cherries in my Christmas fudge - yum!), or a handful in a baggie when I'm off on a hike.

After washing the bowlful and picking through to remove any bird-pecked ones, I sat down to pit them in front of a TV movie. I use a plastic soda straw, bent into a "Z" shape so that it fits into my hand (and also so the cherry goo can't push all the way out the other end). I don't even need to watch what I'm doing - I can just pick up a cherry, feel where the stem was, and then push the pit out the other end with the straw. I have a dehydrator, but this time of year sun-drying works just fine. I put the fruit on the screened trays from the dehydrator, and then to keep bugs and birds away, put the trays between two old window screens on the table out on the deck. I'm experimenting with a few strawberries too, but think I'd rather freeze them (slices on a cookie sheet until frozen, then put into a freezer bag so I can easily take out only as much as I want), or make them into jam.

Too humid where you live, or no dehydrator? You might try dehydrating fruit on cookie sheets in the back window of your car, parked in the sun with the windows cracked just a bit to let out the moisture.

Spring Inspection Time

It's downright hot today. I had Aries put the shade up outside the big east-facing window this morning, so the living room is now a comfortably cool refuge. Then, he took off on a motorcycle ride with a buddy, so I did a little Spring inspection walk around the yard. The daffodils in the herb garden are fading (and will need to be deadheaded), but the first of the tulips and narcissus just opened up. The oregon grape is in bloom - a bright, cheery yellow.

The cellar is up to 50º, so later after it cools down outside, I'll have to get down there and start assessing what can still stay, what needs to be brought up to the refrigerator, what needs to be processed (frozen, dried, maybe canned), what needs to be on the menu this week, and what goes to the chickens. The two fig trees down there are starting to break dormancy. They'll need to be repotted and brought out to the sunshine, and then kept on the wagon to be moved in and out of the garage as the weather warrants. I know I need to get the Roots garden bed prepped, so I can get the seed potatoes stored from last year planted soon.

I've got a dead branch on the Italian prune tree, and it looks like another one on the seedling peach (a mature tree of unknown variety, so named because it just sprouted one year from under a woodpile - the seed probably buried there by a squirrel). The stresses from a drought winter last year and peach tree borer damages are showing up now, so I'll need to do some pruning. I've got one dead branch on a lilac, and I want to move a piece of another one over to fill in a hedge I'm making around a little picnic table. I think of my yard as the slowest form of artwork.

A little hawthorn tree doesn't look like it made it, but there's another sprout down by the vegetable garden that can be moved to take its place. The first strawberry blooms just opened, as did the pears. No asparagus yet - the chickens or rabbits have knocked down the fencing, so that needs to be redone - I hope they haven't destroyed the plants. The two artichoke plants survived the winter, but there's no sign of the rhubarb yet. It's Spring, today anyway, and there's work to be done.

Fruit - To Be or Not to Bee

"April is the cruellest month," said T.S. Eliot. That sure holds true for trying to grow fruit around here. The weather right now determines if I will get much of a crop this year. Last year, just as another wave of blossoms came along, so did the nasty weather. But nothing can compare to the taste of a tree-ripened apricot or peach, fresh-picked and eaten still warm from the sun, bending over right next to the tree to keep the juice from dripping down your shirt. So, even though I might only get a crop one year in every three or four, it's definitely worth the effort.

When we got married we eloped, combining two housefuls of things, so most of my extended family just sent money as a wedding present. We used all of it to buy little bare-root fruit trees, the hardiest ones with the highest chill requirements I could find. We now have quite the little mature orchard. We're situated nicely, comparatively for this area, to be able to grow fruit. We're a bit above the valley floor, so often the cold air will flow right past, sinking to the lowest point. The ground slopes down from the west so we get the first rays of the morning sun. We've had our problems - rabbits walking on top of a deep snowfall girdled quite a few trees one winter (but most sprouted back lower down where the snow had provided a protective cover, and now a wire cage protects each trunk), wind has broken a few branches, and often I have to festoon the trees with scare tape and salvaged CD's to keep the birds from getting everything.

Dare I say it? This year, things are looking pretty good. Both unopened buds and fruit already set can stand temperatures a bit colder than open blossoms. Plus, the apricot blossoms incrementally, the first blooms are withered and brown from the 25º nighttime lows the past week, but a few more opening every day just might make it. It's always the first to bloom, therefore the most likely to freeze, so apricots are the rarest fruit from my orchard. The plums are now in full bloom, and the first peach and nectarine flowers are starting to add a touch of pink. Asian, then regular pears, will follow, then the cherries, and finally the apples.

Wind too, can wreak havoc with a fruit crop. If it's too windy, the bees and other pollinators can't fly. I've been watching for bees, and haven't seen too many - I hope we still have some around. I lost my two hives a few years ago - they just died off. That seems to be happening more and more all over the world, so I'm thinking I should try again to establish a colony or two. Carpenter bees, the big shiny black solitary bees, also make good pollinators. We usually have some that emerge from our woodpile each spring. I've started looking into raising them as well. That can be a topic for another post.