Preservation Day!

What do you do when you have this:

going on on a daily basis, or even more?

And then you decide to go pick blueberries at the Mercer Slough?

 Ari looking for a choice blueberry bush.

 Julie Ann picking berries.

Well, the fridge and freezer are rapidly filling up with berries, zucchini, cucumbers, green beans, peppers, herbs, and did I mention zucchini? All the kitchen counters are sporting baskets of tomatoes.

It's time for Preservation Day! No, not Presidents' Day or Native American Reservation Day, but preservation day! First, we made 10 jars of mixed berry jam and 2 apple blackberry pies. Then it was time for 2 big jars of bread and butter pickles, and 5 jars of tomato salsa. We also roasted 3 lbs of green beans and froze another 3 lbs after blanching. The kitchen was steamy!

 And because of the aforementioned zucchini abundance, it's also time for the Zucchini Challenge!

 Today's contenders are savory zucchini basil parmesan corn mini muffins and spicy sweet zucchini muffin cakes with orange and almond. Both were delish!

And in other news, Anni has finished up her summer cooking camps. She loved all of them! Last week's was the Science of Cooking.  She learned all about yeast, eggs, dairy, flour, and made lots of very calorie dense goodies! The gym is calling! Alex is halfway through his summer tennis lessons, and getting ready to restart the IB program at high school. When not fighting evil doers on his gaming rig, he takes care of the family computers maintenance. Go geek boy!

A new post, finally!

Okay, okay, I know it's been a L___O___N___G time since last we blogged, but we've been really, really busy with all our harvest activities.

Lisa, Ari, and I went east of the Cascade Mountains to visit the Yakima Pepper Market for our yearly stock up of heat. We now have peppers for those who like them mild (the girls) to those that like them screaming hot (David/Alex). We also visited several wineries to sample the harvest and purchase a few of our favorites. The Yakima Valley is beautiful this time of year.

The next weekend Anni and I visited one of our favorite farms, the Jones Creek Farm, up by Sedro Woolly. We picked organic Liberty apples from the orchards, visited with the farmers, and snapped up some homemade local soaps. On the way back, we stopped at another apple farm for apple cider and crab apple jelly. Finally, we made a pits top at the Potato Station for local spuds.

Anni has been enjoying lots of arts and crafts lately. Last fall, we dried apple gourds. This fall, we're painting them and turning them into bird houses. Can you tell, we've been working on an apple theme?

David has been working hard on all his classes. Here he is studying.

Dun, dun...
Dun, dun...
Dun, dun, doodleloo...

Nope, not a shark, but a wisteria that's trying to move indoors, through our front door! Anyone seen the shears?

Fall has retreated

Our weather has been absolutely gorgeous the last few days. The front garden is in false spring with the roses, pansies, and assorted other plants all reblooming! We picked a whole bouquet of pink and red roses yesterday. They smell wonderful.

The pea plants and baby spinach are doing well in the garden. The green beans and tomatillos are still producing at an outstanding rate. Thank goodness the zucchini had finally slowed down. We still have 20 on the kitchen counter! Our pumpkins are in full bloom with two little pumpkins on the vine. Today, we cleared weeds and nonproducing plants (a few spent beans, tomatoes, and squash) to make room for seedlings that will need to be set out by the weekend. We also fertilized all the currently producing plants and herbs with an organic fertilizer and some compost from the worm bin.

Alex is finally getting over his bronchitis, but now Anni has a cold! Pass the tissues!

We had a lovely fall lunch today of potato leek soup with potatoes and leeks from the farmers market, milk from our local dairy farm, and chives from the garden. It was delish! For dinner, we had some porkchops basted in a wonderful apple chipotle sauce from the good folks at Aldrich Farms. It gave them a great sweet spicy tang.

And I'm still making it to the gym, 4 days in a row! Drum roll please...So far, I have 9 miles running, 9 miles cycling, 12 miles elipsing, and 30,000 lbs of weight lifted on the weight machines. Phew!

Fruit and Vegfull

Friday's garden harvest!

The first tomatillos of the season! Along with some beans, chives, and parsley.

The tomatoes and basil.

The haul of squash, 8 more! Zucchini 100: 73 + 8 = 81 to go!

Here are the bumpy gourds we found at the farmer's market yesterday. (That's the wall I painted last week behind them) Also at the market this week, we found terrific local oysters from the Washington coast. We BBQed them up for Saturday's dinner along with some spicy sauce, a pot of fresh corn from the market, potatoes from our garden, and cherry tomatoes (garden). We also found some long thin yellow beans from the Root Connection farm, berries, raspberry lavender sauce, potatoes, and a yellow heirloom tomato.

Yesterday evening, we went for a walk along the Sammamish river. As we were drinking our evening coffee, we noticed all the ripe blackberries on the bushes. As we finished our drinks, we filled our cups with juicy berries which I froze for use later in the winter.

This morning, we decided to pick blackberries near the same location for jam. (Local food foragers are free to pick berries in our local county parks where the bushes are unsprayed.) We set out with our buckets to see how many we could pick. We had a contest to see who could fill their bucket first. We found a mathematical correlation between picking the most and getting stuck the most by the pricklers. I picked the most and needed the most Bactine and bandages. (ouch!) We turned our berry bounty into 2 apple-blackberry cobblers and 14 jars of jam! yum!

Our jam making was a real win-win. Many of the jars were garage sale finds from our friend Lisa, the berries were free foraged, and the water used in processing the jam will be reused to water our plants tomorrow!

Out to another farm!

Yesterday, we took a trip out to Jones Creek Farm with our friend Lisa. The farm is located near Sedro-Woolly, along Highway 20, by milepost 75.

The farm was having its garlic fest. We tasted several types of garlic, ranging from mild to zippy!

Here's the farmer, looking ferocious. "Try the garlic or else!" But seriously, he and his wife are really nice folks with awesome garlic, tomatoes, and tons of fruit.

Here's a pic of the ginormous peaches! We came home and baked 2 peach crisps! Not pictured are the golden plum trees. We picked about 10 pounds of these and then made 12 jars of jam!

Here a pic of the apples! Jones Creek farm grows over 60 varieties of apples and all of them are delicious. We'll be heading back up to pick apples (can you say pie?) in a few weeks.

Check out their awesome website at http://www.SkagitValleyFruit.com.

I buy tomato starts each year from Jones Creek and have never been disappointed (did you see the photos from the last post?). The future funny farmers love apple sampling once all the apple varieties are in season.

It was also farmers market day yesterday. I snagged the last of the black currents for black current syrup. Guess who's having pancakes for breakfast?

A lovely weekend!

Yesterday was farmer's market day. We found large tomatoes, locally caught tuna, red onions, a ginormous lettuce head, 2 baskets of delicious black currents, a loaf of apple nut bread, and a loaf of garlic herb bread, and a selection of truly delicious sauces from Alrich Farms. We also were given a large bag of basil from our friend Lisa.

We've decided Aldrich Farms is our favorite local product of the week. Their delectable jams, pepper jellies, mustards, and sauces are made in Bellingham, Washington. We love the apple garlic pepper jelly on grilled meats. This week we are trying the strawberry rhubarb jelly, apple chipotle mustard, chocolate blueberry sauce, raspberry brandy sauce, and cranberry orange relish. Check out their wonderful website at http://www.aldrichfarms.com/ .

Anni enjoying the sunshine in her backyard swing.

An enormous garden spider hanging out by the worm bin.

Today, the funny farmers had a visit with our friend Ellie. We were all thrilled to see her again, especially Anni. We visited Kelsy Creek Farm, saw the animals and chatted with a local political candidate. It is still toasty warm here, hovering around 90 degrees. We're wilting! We went out for sushi to cool down. Ellie helped us out with the Zucchini 100 by taking 4 home, along with some peas, carrots, herbs, and jams. That leaves 87 more to go!

And last but not least we paid a quick visit to the Goodwill on 145th in north Seattle. We found books for 79 cents, a glass cheese dome that can do dual use as a cheese cover and a seedling protector for $1.99, and a multitude of school supplies, all for under a dollar. Goodwill is a good value and helps provide training and jobs for lots of folks.

Of Tapirs, HTML, and Grains

Ari and Lisa at writing group

(Note Ari's flaming flamingo pen!)

Well, today not much happened on the gardening front. Alas, the seeds were not planted, but tomorrow is another day, and hopefully a cooler one.

Anni and I went to the Zoo with her summer camp. All the animals were up and active, surprising for a warm day. We especially loved the hippos who were frolicking in their swimming hole. Did you know they are the most dangerous animal in Africa? (Except for maybe the mosquito.) One little one wanted to know about that strange swinging tail of the male tapir. We had to delicately explain it wasn't his tail!

Mucho, much thanks to our techie friend Lisa for helping us loads with the blog. Today, after the writing portion of our writing group, she gave Ari and I lesson #1 in pre-school HTML to fix a few clitches in the blog programming. First, she had to tell me what HTML stood for!

In our continuing effort to eat locally, we went in search of local grains. We found Bluebird Grain Farm in WA's Methow valley. They have a CSA for organic and heirloom grains including farro, dark nothern rye, had red wheat, and soft white wheat. This is great news as we can now bake up some bread! Toasty!

Julie Ann