folkmann.ca » garden

Beet? Nice.

jfolkmann — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:47:44 +0000

It’s that time of year again, busy summer evenings, ignoring the blog and an early theft from the garden. Nothing makes me as happy as digging up some of our very own backyard produce. Beets, Potatoes, Carrots, Onions and Garlic will all be on the menu this year…I can’t wait until the rest is ready for harvest.

If you’re wondering about the title, it comes from The Amazing Bobinski.

Currant jelly

jfolkmann — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 02:32:42 +0000

With currants from the bushes in our front yard we made some delicious currant jelly. We managed to get 2 jars out of our haul. It’s an easy recipe, it just takes a bit of time. (note: don’t try to double the recipe as it likely won’t set, just make 2 batches.)

Preparation time: 8h
Cooking time: 20m
Difficulty: 2
Makes: 2 jars

Ingredients

3 cups of currant juice (about 3 1/2 pounds of berries)
3 cups of sugar
1 cup of water

Preparation

Put the berries into a big pot and add a cup of water. Heat the berries until they burst. Put the squishy berries in a cheese cloth covered sieve, and let the juice strain through for at least 8 hours. (most recipes say leave it overnight…but i’m impatient)

Once you have the juice put 3 cups of juice and 3 cups of sugar into a saucepan and bring the mixture to the boil. Once boiling reduce the heat and simmer until the mixture thickens. You can test it by placing it on a cold plate, if the jelly sets it’s ready!

Once the jelly is thick enough, skim any scum off the top of the jelly then pour it into a sterilized jar and seal.

Vegetables from our garden

jfolkmann — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 21:45:42 +0000

Our garden has turned out to be a bit finicky. Most of the vegetables in the front bit of the garden have already met their untimely death, however the back bit (where the water probably drains) is a jungle.

Carrots:
Being a little inexperienced in the ways of good gardening we didn’t thin out the carrots enough and so they’re busy growing around each other. This makes for some interesting shapes and sizes…but they still taste delicious. The ground is so hard now that it’s almost impossible to pull them out, next year I’ll thin them out even more I guess.

Beets:
Our beets are loving the soil and as you can see by the picture growing very well.

Shallots & garlic:
These guys aren’t doing so well, they taste great (really sharp) but ever since the hail storm they haven’t been quite right. I’m not expecting much this year.

Onions:
We haven’t pulled any yet, but some of them look pretty good. They also sustained some hail damage a few weeks ago. We’ll wait and see.

Potatoes:
These are looking great. We just took a hill this evening and they look great. Can’t wait to tuck in!

Last night we put the beets right on the grill, and we put the carrots in a tin foil bag with the garlic and shallots with a bit of butter. Divine! I’m so happy we decided to plant a garden, there is nothing quite like growing your own food.

First harvest

jfolkmann — Mon, 19 May 2008 04:20:09 +0000

It’s been a very long winter…but spring has finally arrived and with it some early produce from our new garden. One of the nice things about buying a house are the leafy surprises that pop up unexpectedly. Lucky for us the former owners planted rhubarb in a great spot and we’ve already been able to pick a few stems. We’ve already made a very tasty rhubarb fool and I’m looking forward to all of the other great dishes we’ll be able to make over the summer.