Canning Plums

First I needed to make a syrup. Everything I read on the internet or in books seemed to be conflicted on what the sugar and water balance was. In the end I decided to go with 4 cups of water and 2 cups of sugar. I didn't want the plums to be too sweet. I cut the pits out of the plums and packed them raw into sterilized jars. I was amazed how many plums you can fit into a quart canning jar.

I boiled the syrup, poured it into each jar and screwed on the sealer lids. I then put the jars in a boiling water bath for 25 minutes. After the timer went off I took the jars out and lined them up on my counter so I could admire them.

The first thing I noticed was that the fruit was floating, then I noticed there was syrup all over the counter. I thought the jars had broken, then I realized the liquid was coming out of the sealer.

My book, Putting Food By, said the fruit was floating in the jar because it was too ripe. Excess liquid came out of the ripe fruit causing the jars to leak it out.

I don't think any of this will affect the taste. Even though all the jars sealed, I'm wondering if the liquid coming out of them will affect their shelf life.

The Best Way To Preserve Ripe Peaches.

I have one twenty pound box of peaches and one twenty pound box of Latin plums ripening on the kitchen table. We are eating them daily but they are already overtaking us in their zest for maturity.

I toyed briefly with the idea of canning some of the peaches but my reading told me I would have to peel them and then coat them with something, lemon juice or ascorbic acid, to prevent them turning brown before I could even think of canning them. UGH. My brain told me that if I could freeze whole tomatoes then maybe I could freeze whole peaches. Google came to my rescue with affirmation from many people that freezing whole peaches is doable.

http://community.tasteofhome.com/forums/t/655087.aspx

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Relish/Freezing-Peaches.aspx

http://simpledailyrecipes.com/how-to-freeze-peaches-and-how-to-peel-frozen-peaches/

http://myeverydaykitchen.blogspot.com/2009/09/freezing-whole-peaches.html

The advice says that the peach should be at the pinnacle of ripeness so that when it is unfrozen it will still be at the pinnacle of ripeness even in the dark days of February. Like tomatoes you wash the ripe fruit, place into freezer bags and pop them into the freezer, much easier then canning. Freezing them with the skin on means you don’t have to worry about them browning.

For some reason taking the skin off plums is not required for canning. I‘ve never canned plums before but I’m going to try and I’m looking forward to eating them.

How to grow lily's ( Lilium )

Lilies are a most elegant flower. Lately I have become obsessed with them and I’m scouring my catalogues looking for promising varieties. This is an Oriental lily. I think the variety is Conca D’or.

Conca D’or is a hybrid made by breeding Oriental and trumpet lilies together. They get their fragrance from the trumpet lily and their huge blooms and impressive height from both of them. Apparently these lilies grow taller and sturdier every year. They can grow to a height of 1.5 metres (5 feet). This is the lilies first year in my garden it is only 80 centimetres (2 ½ feet) tall.

The best time to plant lilies is the fall. Lilies need good drainage if they aren’t to rot, so if you have clay soil put a layer of gravel or sand in the bottom of a large hole big enough to accommodate the bulb and its roots. Usually bulbs are planted to a depth twice their size but in our climate deeper is better.

Lilies like their roots in the shade and their heads in the sun. To accomplish this, plant shallow rooted perennials or annuals around it. Good candidates are violas and Carpathian harebells. Mulching is also an option.

Full sun is necessary if the plants are not to topple over in their effort to reach the sunlight. Like garlic and other bulbs lilies divide every year. When you see lots of foliage and hardly any flowers it is time to divide them. Carefully dig up the bulb mass and break it apart into its individual bits. There will be full sized bulbs as well as a lot of tiny bulblets. Each bulblet has the potential to grow into a full sized bulb. Replant the bulbs right away and compost or give away the excess.

Apart from planting the bulbs deeply and growing shallow rooted plants on top of them you might want to consider layering a mulch on top of your lilies before saying goodbye to them for the winter. The mulch might make the difference between survival and death for the bulbs.

Transition

I hate to think that summer may be over, but over the last few days the temperature has dropped and the sun has disappeared, first behind clouds of smoke from the BC wildfires and now behind clouds of rain.

The smoke was horrible. It no only blocked out the sun but filled the air with choking ash making it difficult to be outside. I was forced to stop running.

The rain is nice it cleans the smoke out of the air, the fires, although much diminished, are still burning, and, the rain gives me a break from watering the vegetables and the pots on my deck. The photos are the Pelergoniums I grow in pots. I bring them inside every winter where they go dormant.

How to Make a Garden Bed.

At this time of year when the garden is at its peak, mature and full of bloom I should be kicking back, enjoying my creation, instead I'm harvesting the vegetable garden almost daily, eating some and processing the excess. At the same time my mind is busy with plans for next year. I’m writing notes of new varieties of vegetables and flowers to grow and planning new garden beds. If I’m going to be growing more vegetables and perennials I will need more garden space.

-Step one is to prepare the site. I start by spading over the sod, turning it over so that its roots are exposed so that they die. The soil around the root zone is a traffic filled road of micro activity and full of nutrients. It would be a shame to throw it away.

Of course the best time to do this is in the spring when the soil is moist and easier to dig. But even though digging in the clay soil in late August is like trying to pass a calculus exam, I’m going to do it now because I know there will not be enough time in the spring to get the bed ready before I want to plant it.

I’m digging out an area for another raised bed in the vegetable garden. Making raised beds is an easy way to solve the problem of trying to garden with impermeable clay soil. Rather then trying to mix in soil amendments, compost and manure, to lighten the clay you simply pile the amendments on top of the clay, to a depth of at least nine inches, giving the plants a light airy soil they can sink their roots into.

-The second step, after the roots of the sod are dead, is to break it up with the spade, incorporating compost and manure. If you are gardening like I am with clay soil add some sand to help increase the spaces between the clay particles. Because I'm doing this now I will let the new bed break up with the natural freezing and thawing of winter, adding the amendments in the spring.

Sweet Peas, Lathyrus odoratus

Every time we lived in a place with a patch of ground my mother grew sweet peas. I still remember the astonishment I felt the first time I held one to my nose and smelled its sweet perfume.

When I got my own patch of ground I planted sweet peas. It is an iffy undertaking because the growing season is short and if the sun doesn’t shine they may not flower before the frost kills them.

Lathyrus odoratus are from Italy and the Mediterranean. Their scent can perfume a whole room and at least their patch of the garden. I grow either the Old Spice Mix or colours from the Cuthbertson Floribunda strain, available from Stokes because they are both heat resistant, a necessary attribute in short season gardening.

I soak my seeds overnight, planting them in the garden in late April to mid May as soon as the snow has melted and the frost is out of the ground. Choose a place in the sun with deep fertile soil. Mulch or plant other things next to them to keep their roots cool. The vines can grow up to seven feet tall. I plant mine at the end of my pea row so they can take advantage of the fence.

By mid August they start to flower. Picking the flowers for bouquets indoors encourages continual flowering.

Fennel, Foeniculum vulgare

Native to Europe and the Mediterranean fennel can often be found growing invasively in weed patches. It is a biennial or perennial belonging to the carrot, Apiacea, family.

In the garden it is easy to grow. I planted fennel seeds directly in the soil after the last frost date. In a few days it poked up a feathery leaf.

The bulbs swell and the feathery leaves get bigger and more numerous. Eventually yellow flowers appear which develop into seeds.

Fennel is very frost tender. I don’t know if the growing season is long enough up here to see the plant flower and go to seed.

I use fennel seeds in East Indian cooking. Their aniseed taste imparts a lovely flavour to curries and vegetable dishes. Candy coated fennel seeds are offered at the end of an East Indian meal because they help with digestion as well as freshening the breath. The fresh bulb can be chopped into salads or cut it in half, brushed with olive oil, and grilled.

Heliotropium arborescens

A friend introduced me to this plant. She said I would enjoy it and she was right.

Its clusters of dark purple flowers emit a lovely fragrance reminiscent of baby powder or vanilla although catalogues describe it as smelling like cherry pie. It’s a shrubby plant with dark green crinkly coarse leaves. It is native to central and Southern America where it is grown as a perennial. I have never been successful trying to winter Heliotrope indoors and if it weren’t for its fragrance I wouldn’t bother since it is easily grown from seed.

The plant follows the sun its flowers and leaves facing east in the morning and gradually turning westward following the path of the sun. Its name is derived from the Latin word Heliotropium meaning turning towards the sun.

Despite loving the sun Heliotrope does like some protection from it in the hottest part of the day. In far northern gardens this may not be necessary. I grow my plants in in ful sun and they do fine. The plant is very frost tender so keep an eye on those seedlings you are hardening off in the spring and again in the fall when clear nights can turn frosty.

The Seducing effect of Datura

An enticing article called, The Other Garden flowers that bloom in the night, in a long ago issue of Harrowsmith had me reaching for my credit card. In due time a packet arrived in the mail containing seeds of the sweet smelling, intoxicating Datura flower.

It was the promise of the plants sweet smelling tropical scent, that assailed author Adrian Forsyth’s nose as he got out of his truck, stepping into his garden one evening, that enticed me to try and grow the plant. I wanted to emulate his experience.

The fact that the leaves contain an alkaloid, hyoscyamine that is hallucinogenic and toxic did not deter me in the least.

Daturas are nightshades, members of the Solanaceae family that also includes Nicotiana, another plant that produces night scented flowers, as well as the familiar potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and eggplants.

The photo below was taken on my recent trip to California where Jimson weed, D stramonium grows everywhere.

In great anticipation I planted my Datura seeds, in a seed starter mix, at the same time I planted my tomatoes and peppers, and waited. Of course they sprouted, growing into green scraggly plants. Tenderly I put each seedling into a pot on my south facing deck for they need as much sunlight as possible. They grew slowly, I suspect, because despite searing daytime temperatures the mercury dropped to a single digit at night. Then one clear night in August the mercury dropped even lower and that was the end of my exciting project.

Of course if I had paid more attention, grown them in a greenhouse, which I didn’t own in that stage of my gardening career, I may have had the plants for longer and I could have bought them inside and perhaps kept them alive in a south facing window.

The flowers open at night. Being white they glow in the dusk and their scent, which apparently can be detected up to fifty feet away, attracts a species of sphinx moth that have no trouble extracted the nectar from the pools at the base of the long tubular flowers. In the morning the flowers shrivel and are best picked off.

D meteloides and D. fastuosa are both suitable to grow as annuals in northern gardens.

You can buy Datura seeds at The Canadian Thomson and Morgan site.

Why Is Clay Soil Such A Bitch?

Clay is what potters use to make plates bowls teapots and mugs. When you add water to it, it becomes soft, slimy and sticky and it can easily be moulded. As it dries out it gets harder. To make it even harder you bake it or fire it in an oven or kiln.

In the garden clay soil acts in much the same way. As the snow melts and the frost comes out of the ground walking through the garden will result in two pounds of clay sticking to each shoe. You have to scrape it off. As the sun shines hotter the puddles dry up and it stops raining clay soil gets harder and harder. Aiming the point of a shovel at the ground and jumping on it to dig a hole is liable to break the shovel.

My first garden had clay soil, except the vegetable garden had been deeply cultivated and bulked up with manure and compost for ten years by the previous owners. My perennial garden was a raised bed filled with cow manure that had been rotting on the neighbours back forty for at least a dozen years.

My second garden was built on sand and gravel.

The garden I have now is clay. My first year was a disaster. I don’t own a tiller, still don’t. The second year I put in raised beds for the vegetable garden filling the beds with dubious topsoil from the guy down the road consequently the vegetables didn’t fare much better. This year I added lots of purchased compost from the dump and horse manure from a friend. The vegetables are doing much better.

The perennial garden is still a disaster. Four years ago I planted roses by digging holes in the clay, filing them with homemade compost and put in the plants. I suppose it says a lot for roses that they have all grown and are doing fine. They would do better if I watered them.

The perennial garden bed wraps around the house from East to West it is 138 feet long and varies from 2 feet wide too ten feet wide. Instead of digging out the clay or at least loosening it and mixing in compost and manure I added other plants in exactly the same way as I did the roses.

I put compost and manure around the plants and expected them too grow. Instead as the plant roots exhaust the hole I had dug for them, their roots are coming up against the impenetrable clay and they have stopped growing. When I water I give them a good soak such that I fill up their clay hole with water, probably drowning them in the process.

On the whole the shallow rooted plants are doing fine other plants are having difficulty establishing themselves. The clematis is not has strong or healthy as I would like it to be. The Echinacea is taking longer to establish and the Elderberry winterkills every year. I know this is because of the clay soil and the facts the plants roots can’t get down.

I have tried loosening the soil with gypsum. Apparently it is a one time application you sprinkle on top of the garden in the fall. I added it a year ago. It has not loosened the soil in the slightest.

There are no short cuts in gardening. What I should have done and what I’m going to do now is dig out as much of the clay as I can and mix into the remaining clay truckloads of compost purchased from the dump. Luckily it is only 16 dollars a yard and manure from a friend which is free and my own compost which is also free although I don’t make very much of it.

August In The Garden

Abundant, profuse, overflowing, generous and plentiful are just a few words describing the August garden.

In the North, frost can occur anytime after the third week. You must be ready with large swaths of plastic, a tarp or even blankets with which to cover the tender things at night. I also keep a portable heater on hand for the greenhouse, but I know the structure is good for a couple of degrees of sub zero temperatures before I have to use it.

By now I‘ve stopped buying vegetables. We are feasting from the garden and preserving the surplus.

my thoughts on preserving the bounty

A comprehensive guide to canning, freezing and drying food

To keep the produce fresh and the plants healthy it is essential that you water deeply, making sure the plants get a good drink if they are not to wither and die in the late summer heat.

My guide to watering the garden

By now the vegetables you have reseeded will have sprouted. By harvesting the ripe vegetables you make room for the new ones to grow and expand.

Below are links to blogs I read and enjoy, written by people who are serious about growing their own food.

You Grow Girl

Tiny Farm Blog

Farm Apartment

dirt happy

The New Way To Preserve the Garden Bounty

I used to get up far too early, light my wood stove, and while simultaneously drinking cup after cup of black coffee, chop and peel my way through mountains of vegetables and fruits. I made jam, relish, salsa and pickles. Not the traditional type of pickle made from cucumbers but one that contained things like fresh dill, hot peppers, garlic, beans, carrots, peas and cauliflower or some other combination of whatever was ripe in the garden at that moment.

While my pots simmered and bubbled I wiped the mist off my glasses, consulting my preserving book, checking the times for leaving the jars in the canner to ensure they were thoroughly sterilized preventing mould or bacteria from growing inside them.

I no longer live in that house, although, sometimes I’m smitten by a wave of nostalgia for the wood stove, usually in mid winter. Nowadays I freeze everything. Tomatoes, berries and herbs can all be washed, piled into plastic freezer bags and frozen until a later date when it is colder, to be made into jam or salsa or pies or whatever.

Vegetables, unfortunately, still need to be partly cooked before freezing, to ensure they keep their flavour and colour. Believe me I’ve tried not doing this and the results were disappointing.

Root vegetables can be pulled and stored in a dark cold room, mine is in the basement. The best temperature to keep it, is from 0-4 degrees C 32-40 degrees F. My cold room is built in the corner of the basement so it has two outside walls. There is a hole in one side with a pipe in it. The hole lets cold air come in. When it gets too cold I stuff and old t-shirt into the pipe. It is not perfect.

I’ve left carrots and potatoes in the ground all winter. They stay hard and fresh. It is nice, after the ground unfreezes the following spring and when the stuff you have faithfully stored, has gone mushy or started to grow or both, to once again be able to eat fresh vegetables from the garden.

I see no reason why other root vegetables, beets parsnips and rutabagas can’t be stored in the same manner.

Drying is another time honoured why to store food from the garden. Dried tomatoes are classic. and some herbs can be dried successfully without loss of favour. You can dry things in the sun and it works, but for drying tomatoes I use my fancy new toy. It is not a food dryer it is my convection oven set to the drying mode. You can also use a regular oven set at a low temperature, 160 degrees F, 71 degrees C. I’ve made jerky and dried chilli to take on a back packing trip in my convection oven.

All about Coleus

Coleus belongs to the genus Solenostemon which is part of the mint family, Lamiacea. They used to be included in the related genus, Plectranthus and Coleus.

Native to the tropics they are grown for their wonderfully coloured foliage in all shades and combinations of red, purple, white, green and yellow. In northern gardens they are grown as annuals and houseplants. Technically they are classified as a tender perennial. Coleus range in height from six inches up to thirty six inches high.

How To Grow

If you grow Coleus pinch back the growing tips to keep the plant bushy. Coleus can withstand full sun but they do better in part shade. Their beautiful colours are more intense and they require less water. Cut off the flower spikes when they appear. The flowers are tiny, nondescript and blue. If you allow the plant to flower and go to seed it will die since it has completed its life objective.

Making More

Coleus is easy to propagate. Cut off a stem and root it in a glass of water. They can be grown from seed as well. It’s a good way to expand your coleus collection since a packet of seed will contain the potential for lots of different coloured plants.

They can be kept in a perennial state by moving the plants indoors if frost threatens.

I have planted a coleus in a pot with my begonia. I'm hoping to be able to keep both of them alive until next summer and beyond.

For more information on growing Coleus go here

Using A Leitmotiv In Garden Design

Designing a garden so the plantings, as well as the design look natural and not contrived is difficult. The design should not look like it was imposed upon the landscape but rather like the landscape has dictated the design. This is the premise behind the book, “Plant Driven Design, creating gardens that honour plants place and spirit, By Scott Ogden and Lauren Springer Ogden.

Apart from basic rules such as growing plants suited to the soil, the site and the climate the authors say that as the plants grow and develop the design of the garden may have to be changed to accommodate them. Instead of pruning back the shrub to make it fit its designated spot you enlarge the spot for the tree, or move the path or whatever it takes to keep it growing.

The concept of the leitmotiv, a German word meaning guiding pattern is borrowed from music to mean a repeated pattern - rhythm or melody. It organises the music, making it easier for us to enjoy. In the garden it means to repeat certain plants or groups of plants throughout the border, or even to grow a lot of the same plant in one area so that the eye can come to rest on this visually splendid planting.

In one part of my garden I have planted four different types of thyme along the front of a huge perennial bed. Interweaved throughout the Thyme is the silver fuzzy leaved Stachys byzantium (lambs ears) and silver leaved pink fringed flowers of Dianthus gratianopolitanus (Cheddar pinks). Behind these plantings are the roses.

All four of these plants make up a leitmotiv keeping the bed from looking like a jumble.

Epilobium angustifolium (fireweed)

Every spring I let forgetmenots colonize another area, as they fade and go to seed purple and white iris take over.

In another part of my garden I have let the native fireweed take over. It’s eye catching purple flowers atop five foot spires are followed in the autumn with white feathery seed heads. If I find it growing where I don’t want it, it is easy enough to weed out its shallow roots.

Since time and money are the resources I have little of, I had no choice but to let the plants tell me what to do.

Growing Begonias in Northern Gardens

I was more than surprised when my begonia came back. I had never given them much thought. One year I was swayed by the colourful displays at the supermarket, to buy an interesting specimen with thick hairy stems and pointed greenish reddish, slightly hairy leaves.

Its double white flowers have a reddish tinge on the underside. I potted it up in a big pot along with some ivy and placed in it a shady spot. By the time I remembered to bring it inside, for the winter, we had already had a few frosts so I cut off the worst of the dead ivy, pulled the dead leaves off the begonia and forgot about it.

The following year, in March, I noticed a stem coming up in the middle of the pot, slowly it unfurled a couple of baby leaves and at this point I realized what was going on.

It came back faithfully for five or six years until this spring. I looked up begonia in my gardening encyclopaedia. I read they are a tropical plant that can be can be fibrous, rhizome or tuberous rooted and they can grow as shrubs or as trailers and climbers. I learned the begonia I had, belonged to the trailing or scandent group. It can have white, pink or red flowers, often scented, unfortunately the flowers of my plant aren't scented, and that it is hardy in zones 9-12.

Next time I was in a nursery I went straight to the begonia section and bought exactly the same plant.

For more about growing begonias in a northern climate go to begonias.ca