Strawberry sorbet

Note to self: make more next year! I can't remember exactly how, but I think it was just mashed strawberries, some sugar, maybe some lime juice, and here's the kicker: mint. Ohhhhhhhh... It's so divine. It's been in the freezer for 4 months and it's like summer is back.

Apple butter

I am so ready for bed, but I know I'll be happy I did this.

Applesauce

So, like I said, I think I'm writing a food blog now. My friend Karl and I planned a big saucing day and he brought at least 2 bushels from a local farm. I think he also became addicted to the peeler/corer/spiral cutter my friend Emma lent us. Ignoring whether or not I could keep up, or even whether or not we had enough pots to hold the apples, he plowed through the entire collection. The majority were winesaps, but we also had ginger gold, yellow delicious, and jonagold. I think winesap and jonagold are our leading apple varieties at this point.

Two crock pots and two of our largest pots on the stove, and this is probably only half the apples.

Here's one half, of my half, canned and ready for storage. I made a batch with some of my frozen raspberries.  (I LOVE this stuff.) But I also canned some plain. Some of these jars were canned with the new Tattler lids. These are BPA-free plastic canning lids that are reuseable - two awesome points in their favor. It was my first try and they worked great. Now I'm going down to finish canning all the apple butter. I'm ready to be done.

Apple dumplings

I fear this garden blog is going to turn into a cooking blog. It's apple season and my husband is really into apple dumplings. Had to share.

Herbed salt

My latest favorite way to store summer flavor...herbed salt. This batch has thyme and sage, the last was rosemary and sage. Think veggies tossed with olive oil and herbed salt and roasted, or patting a chicken with the tasty salt, or on scrambled eggs, or, popcorn?

I followed a recipe from the Splendid Kitchen: http://www.publicradio.org/columns/splendid-table/recipes/homemade_tuscan_or_other_herb_salt.html

You wish you could put your nose over this bowl right now. And I wish I'd thought of this before my herbs' last days.

Here's the hoop house. Karl came over and helped me throw it together while Doug was working on our addition. The hoop house consists of 6 10 ft lengths of 3/4 inch PVC. The two end arches were cut in half and a T-connector was cemented between the two halves. The ridgepole was cut to length, and inserted into the two T-connectors. (Not cemented so that it's easier to take it down later. We'll see if that's a problem.) 5 4 ft long rebars were cut in half to make 10 2ft pegs. Pounded into the ground with 4 inches above, these rebars are the posts that anchor the ends of the PVC arches. An old paint tarp was laid over the top. (I still haven't gotten around to sizing it correctly.) Rocks and wood anchor it around the sides and right now snow does too. An old hose was cut in foot long lengths and slit on the inside of the curve to clamp the plastic to the PVC arches. These work OK, but the weight of the snow on top, and sometimes the wind can cause the hose to pop off.

Inside, everything is doing well except the zucchini. The 29 degree temps seem to have caused some of the leaves to droop. I pulled the plant today, because without pollinators nothing else will come on it anyway and as you'll see below, the last zuchini was ready for harvest.

And check out the daikon!!! It really didn't need to be in the hoop house. It was started August 11th, and just now, when the frosts could start to top kill it, it is supremely ready for harvest. So maybe next year, I'll do some later plantings in the hoop house and earlier out and around the garden.

Scarlet Runner Beans

This is what I got off the 5 ft row of scarlet runner beans I planted.

I just read a little more about them and found out that I could have eaten them as fresh string beans if I picked them young enough. Also that the gorgeous red flowers are edible and so is the root! The beans can be eaten fresh like lima beans, or dried as I was planning. But they are HUGE so I'm thinking it'll take forever for them to dry and even longer to rehydrate for soup, so this was probably not the best idea I ever had. Maybe I'll freeze them.

Furthermore, this bean is PERENNIAL!!! It can live and regrow for 7 YEARS! The Indians called it a magic bean.

Anyway. I'm completely sold and will probably grow more of this next year and maybe less bush bean - or maybe both. Who knows.