Independence Days Update: Season of Fruit
Sharon June 24th, 2010
With the cherries, the season of fruit hit full swing. The strawberries are nearly done – mine are all done, with one or two exceptions, and the pick your own will only be open for a few more days. The cherries are overflowing though – we picked 30lbs yesterday with my sister and nieces. 10lbs went home with Vicki for cherry pie, quite a few are being eaten, and the rest will be jam and pie filling.
The strawberries have that end-of-season, very slightly past-prime taste, but they still make wonderful jam and dry beautifully. And Isaiah brought over the first handfull of wild raspberries yesterday afternoon, and each of us got one, full of promise to come.
My kids are big fruit eaters, and we try to minimize our out-of-season fruit eating (we are not perfect by any means in this regard). This means that my children have been eating apples more or less non-stop since last August as their primary fresh fruit. There were some oranges and bananas in winter, there were fall raspberries, pears and quinces and the dried and canned fruit from last summer, but berries, cherries, peaches – these have not been part of our lives for many months. The anticipation means that when they arrive, they are a bliss, and we enjoy them fully.
It is also time for the first wave of serious herb harvesting at our place. Since medicinals are a big deal for us (and I hope will be a big part of the farm sales), they are taking up more and more time. This week we set up our drying room – the glassed-in mudroom off my kitchen. We closed it up and locked it and its southern exposure keeps the room hot enough to dry herbs very quickly – and since rapid drying is essential to keeping them green and fresh, we’ve been really happy with it. Eric set up strings running across the roof, and I use rubber bands to hook the bunches of plant material hanging, while trays of flowerheads and smaller materaisl rest underneath. So far, it has been a howling success.
We managed local zucchini today, and I have one tiny one and several blossoms, so I’m hopeful. It amazes me how exciting zucchini is in June and how annoying in August 
. We’re still putting in the new beds, but now I’m starting to think about fall crops – I still have a few summer ones to go, along with the perennials that I am establishing for for next year’s medicinal harvest. Most of the summer garden is in, but there’s always a few late things that we are running behind with.
The goats are dry, and we are enjoying the break from milking. When we go back, we’ll have seven does in milk, so we’ve decided to milk only once a day – less milk per doe, but enough for and plenty for the kids, and less work. We don’t mind milking twice a day, but if we don’t need to, we’ll be grateful to have evening chores shortened a bit, especially with more goats adding time.
I’m waiting for a cool day to rebreed Rosemary – she’s ready for another breeding and her babies are getting big and cute. But bunnies don’t like heat and it can reduce male fertility, and we’ve been having a warm spell – I gather it will be cooler next week and am waiting for that.
After Eric’s birthday party on Sunday we had an unbelievable amount of leftover lasagna and goodies – so we’ve barely cooked at all. This has been lovely and the kids are thrilled with all the unaccustomed treats (not to mention the strawberry-rhubarb pie and ice cream my sister provided yesterday). The supply is finally petering down, though, and we’ll go back to cooking – but not much to say about that this week.
Otherwise, just the usual, plant and harvest, preserve and plant some more. Starting seeds for fall crops, trying to get everything in the ground…it is all an endless but richly enjoyable project.
Plant something: Elecampane, tomatoes, eggplant, okra, melons, kale, broccoli, beans, flax, clover, amaranth, sunflowers, horehound, yarrow, goji berries, peppers, ginko.
Harvest something: Peas, eggs, kale, bok choy, lettuce, beets, strawberries, cherries, yarrow, motherwort, catnip, lemon balm, chamomile, calendula, red clover, yellow bedstraw, mint, betony.
Preserve something: Made more strawberry rhubarb jam, froze snap peas, dried strawberries, dried many herbs.
Waste Not: Nothing unusual, except eating down the party food.
Want Not: Nothing unusual – very party focused. We didn’t even make it to our synagogue yard sale, usually a seasonal highlight.
Eat the Food: Yup, we ate food. Nothing really exciting though, although I made a lovely black bean and corn salsa with the very last of our frozen corn. Ok, ready for corn season again!
Build community food systems: Some discussion of a community garden at our synagogue, which I really want to happen, and a bunch of radio stuff. But I’ve got something bigger on the back burner, waiting for time to make it simmer.
How about you?
Sharon