Pears, Persimmons & Sourdough

Well, it's been a while! What can I say except that things got away from me. I visited family in November, my mother visited for 3 weeks in December, plus I had to deal with the 8 weeks long chest cold from hell. 

My chief culinary accomplishments of late fall and early winter include:

PEARS: My friend George forwarded me a note from a community list along with a photo of a gorgeously laden and tempting looking pear tree.  I harvested about 30+ lbs of small pears which seemed quite hard, along with my friend Veronika.  The location was near Oakland's Chinatown, so while we were back there, some neighbors came by and also harvested some pears.  V and I thought they were kind of firm but one lady bit into it and said they were good.

The pears were small, a bit mealy and very hard.  They had a yellow-green skin under a brown layer that scraped off with light application of fingernail or nylon scrubby pad.  I washed all the pears and laid them out to ripen on trays.  And waited.  And waited.  After 2 weeks, some of them just went mushy, so I did some research.

What I discovered is that there are some old varieties of pears that are only for cooking - I think these pears were Kiefer pears.  So, I poached some pears and they came out so amazingly delicious!  I canned the rest of the pears in several batches - some with light syrup and some with light syrup and spices (clove, cinnamon, star anise). I'll be set for a while for canned pears, I promise some lovely pear photos.

PEAR VINEGAR: As Marilee from Urban Legend Cellars said, "folks don't know how EASY it is to make vinegar!"  I put a big pile of pear peelings and cores into a gallon glass jar with distilled water - and I keep adding water and aerating it.  It's now growing a mother on top - just like kombucha or Bragg's apple cider vinegar!  Soon I will get up the nerve to taste my pear vinegar.  Expanded post with pictures coming soon.

GROUND CHERRY JELLY: the ground cherries kept going long after everything else quit.  The one Giant Ground Cherry plant I got from Annie's is still going out there - and I hope to promote those for the next season over the smaller kind.  I made up 12 half pints of jelly but it didn't set as firmly as I want, so the jars are still on the kitchen windowsill waiting to be remade (or poured over pound cake and ice cream, tough call).


PERSIMMONS: In early November, I made my annual harvest of persimmons from Larissa & Geoff's 3 story high Hachiya persimmon tree. After I picked about 200 persimmons in early November, left them to ripen while I was gone for a week - and ripen they did!  Then I and dried them all - with some pulp in the freezer as usual.  I made two giant trays of persimmon bread pudding for Holly & Marina's wedding reception - it was very well received and there were no leftovers!

SOURDOUGH: I took a Sour Flour class just a few days into the onset of the Horrible Chest Cold from Hell - and had mixed results with the starter (it eventually died).  I plan to get some starter from a neighbor named Ana.

GARDEN - Veggies vs Flowers: no, I did not manage to get my winter greens garden in properly this year again.  However, I did manage to keep alive my digitalis purpura and put it in the ground, along with some jasmine and a 2-stick rose plant - so there will be lovely scented flowering things along the fence in my garden.  The brugmansia that I got as a leafless wine barrel size root ball from Freecycle is flourishing in the side yard and sending up leaves and new growth, fingers x'd that I will have some lovely scented angel trumpets in the spring.

The broccoli di cicco has gone feral and seems to be flowering continuously - an attack of little grey aphid-y things on the broccoli, mustard and broccoli rab volunteers makes them inedible but I am leaving the large stand of broccoli di cicco because it seems to be making the honeybees very happy.  Once my other flowering plants start producing flowers, I will tear it out to make space for tomatoes.

What I love about my neighborhood is that you get random curb scores - I got a paper grocery sack half full of rhizomes labeled "FREE!" Purple and light blue irises!" which are going into the ground along the house by my steps this week.


Wow! And here I thought I hadn't done much - it turns out I've just been a lazy blogger! I promise to make it up to you, the one reader who still checks in on my blog occasionally (hi Aunt Sue!) and some backdated posts that I obviously owe are coming this week!

Garden Update!

The garden is looking pretty fabulous - I put in 18 plants from Kassenhoff, and I have volunteers all over the garden as well as other random places such as next to the driveway, by the trash cans in the front yard and such.  I think the birds and squirrels were busier than last year.  I have decided this year to do stakes - though I am putting cages on some of the tomato plants, esp the volunteers which I know are going to be cherry tomatoes.

I planted some broccoli - late, I know - but with our late rain (it poured all day on July 5th!) and overcast skies, it is thriving.  I had about 800 ground cherry volunteers - some were potted up and many handed off to local folk who responded to my Freecycle post. 

James turned me onto Annie's in Richmond - I got a spaghetti squash plant there which is just going absolutely nuts.  There are about 10 softball size spaghetti squash.  My cocozelle is doing well, having already produced one 18" long squash (oops! I blinked!) though some are false starts, indicating that I need to digitally facilitate pollination again (or get bees).  Cucumber plants are doing well -- but none of the squash or cucumbers are following the lines I staked down around the leaves to make them climb UP to the trellis (dammit!).  The small honeydew I got from Annie's - supposed to be softball sized - is NOT thriving.  Neither are my two bell pepper plants which probably want way more sunlight.

Parsley & chard are both going to seed, following cilantro and arugula.  I'm waiting for the seeds to shape more maturely so I can pull them off and sow them back in the ground.  The fresh cilantro seeds, however, might get eaten.  I have been quite lazy and haven't yet planted the half wine barrels - but they will soon be planted with some radishes, basil and lettuces.  I know - basil likes hot weather and radishes cool but this *is* July in Oakland afterall.

Pictures coming - I promise!  My neighbor gave me a zinnia start which just opened its first red blossom today and it is stunning!

Garden 2011

Sadly no pictures - just news that I picked up plants from Kassenhoff (at the Farmer's Market) and Annie's in Richmond and put some plants:

• 12 Tomatoes (in addition to the volunteers)
• 4 peppers
• 2 squash
• 1 cucumber
• 1 giant ground cherry (to keep the smaller ground cherries company)

Seems early enough - let's see how it goes this year!

Plant Sale in Oakland on May 7!

Thanks to Girl on Bike for excellent news about an upcoming North Oakland plant sale

Spring Plant Swap in the North Oakland Golden Gate Community. 

Have plants you need to prune? Extras that don't seem to fit in with your home or garden? Started too many seeds this year? Why not bring them all down to the North Oakland Plant Swap and trade them with your neighbors for some new-to-you plants and gardening supplies.

At the plant swap you can bring plants, cuttings, seedlings, starts, foraged plants, and seeds of edible & non edible plants.
This is also a great place to bring any extra gardening supplies you have: pots, natural fertilizers, vermicompost/worms, garden tools, stepping stones, etc. 
Pass them all on to a new home and come pick up some new-to-you plants for your garden and home.

Need to donate your plants earlier than the swap date? No problem. We will be accepting donations at the swap location May 4th, 5th, & 6th. 

The only entrance fee is something brought to add to the swap.
*Please remember to label each of your plants with these Plant Information Sheets

Spring Swap:

Saturday May 7th

12-3pm

5927 San Pablo Ave.

Oakland, CA 94608

(on the Berkeley/Emeryville border)

Potato Condo Harvest!

The Great Potato Condo Experiment - after growing potatoes for nearly a year, I wasn't quite sure when I should just knock it over and harvest.  I do, afterall, live in a 365 day growing season (for potatoes, apparently) so none of the plants up and died or dried out on me as I expected as the signal that it was time.  Over the past couple of months, I would find a few potatoes popping out of the wire mesh here and there - I even cut down the wire mesh by 2' because the soil compacted and slid out so much.

Finally, with James' assistance - it was time to harvest.  As he said - $40 worth of dirt for $10 worth of potatoes.  I saved the plants and some of the potatoes with sprouts and put it all into 3-gal nursery pots in a different area to continue growing potatoes - here are photos of the condo harvest.

Figs, Beans & Tomatoes

GARDEN has been looking quite pathetic. James suggested I just get out the hoe and clear the whole area and start over. I'm determined that the volunteers and scraggly looking plants I got from the farmer's market will make it.

Since he's going out of town, James gave me 11 2' high tomato plants in half gallon pots, started from my seeds, which he had not the space and we worried they would die on the deck in his absence. I also was gifted a dozen small tomato plants in 2-4" pots by Scott's neighbor Devin.

So, as you may imagine, after a weekend of many other friend related tasks - I had a busy day today. I made up some green fig jam, spicy dilly beans, cleaned out James' fridge of perishables and then weeded my garden and found some cucumbers and planted tomatoes. I also harvested some cucumbers from my garden to give to Hastings & Catherine -- I have a bunch of cucumbers from James which I want to turn into bread & butter pickles before I leave on my trip on Tuesday.

SPICY DILLY BEANS - James gave me all the string beans in his garden since he won't be around to pick them or eat them for a week - together we cleared about a pound and a half. We agreed that they would make fine hot dilly beans. This time, they are going to be really spicy. And more garlic. I cut dill flowers and leaves from my garden (yay!) and included 1 habanero and 1 serrano and 2-4 cloves of garlic in each 12 oz jar.

GREEN FIG JAM - The figs that I picked ripe on Monday at Susie & Rich's kept pretty well in the fridge. I learned, however, that picking unripe figs and leaving them on the tray to ripen seems to result only in "hrm, not quite ready" to a giant hairy moldball the next day. So, the bowl of ripe figs in the fridge resulted in 4 cups of mashed, simmered fruit - and a fine light green fig jam.

YIELD:

• 5 - 12 oz jars dilly beans
• 8 - 4 oz jars green fig jam
• 2 - 8 oz jars green fig jam

SEEDLING FAIL - again!

You know what they say, right? Third time is the charm? Well, they LIED!

OK - for real, the seedlings were doing MUCH better. The weather was warm so I put the tray outside to harden off and had high hopes. That is, til I came home from work the day after a return from camping with a friend to discover that - will good intentions - he had put the clear plastic cover back on the seed tray and they all DIED while I was at work on Tuesday.

*sigh*

I told my friend and he was very sorry - in fact, he respectfully converted the little seed cup markers to tombstones of varying faiths (cross, star, crescent moon,peace sign, and I think an ankh) before I got home Wednesday. I just found the cute seedling marker modifications tonight when I got home. I love this friend - he has a really endearing cute streak.

Time to move to Plan B: relying on volunteers and seedlings from James.

Garden Update

The kale, broccoli rab & chinese broccoli (basically like broccoli rab) are growing and may be ready to nibble early next week. Chard is going like crazy and getting TALL! I think I have to re-plant chard seeds. Cilantro, fennel, dill & parsley not growing as expected. Lettuces planted didn't grow well though two heads of romaine popped up 10 feet away (I think seeds got on kitty or raccoon paws - birds must've eaten rest of seeds).

The potato condo is doing very well. Lots of vines, no flowers yet - am going to add a few more sprouted potatoes to the condo.

Lots of tomato volunteers in the garden - 31 at last count though I spotted a few coming up amidst the kale.

My seedling tray is sad and pathetic.

I am going to just buy a TON more basil seeds and sow direct to soil because I'm tired of them not growing in the tray, and have to go buy some more tomatoes so I can have 50 or so again this year. *sigh*

Buying tomato plants. What is this world coming to?

SEEDLING FAIL, Redux

I am very worried for my seedlings. The seedlings are way too long and leggy. The conditions are the same as last year - except that I started the seeds in March, and here it is already May. So, I set up two grow lights and put a heating pad under the tray. I pulled out the really leggy seedlings that look seriously doomed and replanted -- fingers crossed!

Garden Update

Very exciting to report that the garlic is positively flourishing! The dill and fennel are coming up, and the tomato plants I got from the farmer's market seem to be doing ok. There are dozens of volunteer tomato plants in the garden - in fact, they are growing strong and seem to be doing pretty well. The kale & greens are all coming up - but sadly, the seedlings for parsley, cilantro and lettuces are not. Potato condo looks amazing. I swear - I have photos - just haven't uploaded them yet!

Seedling FAIL!

GARDENING UPDATE: First round of seeds did not germinate - I tried to germinate them outdoors, putting the seed tray in the solar dehydrator. I suspect it got too hot in the day, too cold at night.

Sunday I spent some time replanting the seedling tray. I also put all the kales into the ground: Chinese kale (which looks like broccoli), broccoli rab, lacinato kale and black kale. I even got a couple of tomato plants at the farmer's market to put into the ground since my tomato seeds aren't doing so well.

Other items planted include: garlic, cilantro, endive, parsley, peas, fennel & dill seeds sowed directly in the ground.

The potato condo continues to look stupdendous, and I am sprouting more potatoes for the bald spots. I can't figure out how to get more water down to the bottom of the condo - the top is quite moist and I'm finding the occasional mushroom growing (oh, yay for wood chips in the organic soil).

Potato Condo!

POTATO CONDO - second best idea I heard of in 2008, right up there with the Diva Cup. After doing some research, and last summer happening to find some wire mesh on the side of the road in the Berkeley Hills with my friend Jon, I finally put together my potato condo today.

The basic concept is to create a vertical garden instead of using square footage on the ground. The advantage is that the dirt can be re-used somewhere else, heading off the development of potato-specific diseases, you can harvest potatoes very easily, and once the vines are done, you just knock that condo over, shake and disconnect the seam and (with some very strong friends) sift the dirt away from the potatoes.

Now, most directions for a potato condo involve wood and attaching slats to the sides, adding dirt as the vines grow and removing slats from the bottom to free the potatoes. Some instructions are for stacking old tires. That just seems like a lot of extra work to me.

Somewhere, in my research, I saw these great instructions for using wire mesh for the potato condo by creating a tube by bending the edges over each other, then cutting hand-size holes around the tube to stick in the potatoes.

Good, in theory. In practice, my experience has been to realize I need a much better pair of wire snippers. My hands got sore. Also, wearing long sleeves might be advisable since I ended up with so many scratches on my arms that I look like I came out of the losing end of bathing a herd of cats. Also, I need to use smaller mesh - this mesh is stiff and holds up well but actual chicken wire would probably be easier to cut and hold the dirt in.

The biggest problem has been keeping the dirt IN the potato condo. It just wants to go out. It's not wet enough and I'm afraid it's going to dry out too fast. Next time - I'll water down the dirt in the bag or in the pots so that it is nice and sopping wet before I heave it into the potato condo.

Also, in retrospect, I should have made it bigger around and shorter - I think my potato condo is Jenn-size. Don't just do it - do it BIG!

A Bad Winter for Growing Things but Everyone Likes Lemonade!

MUSHROOMS FORAGING/COOKING: As much as I enjoy 68 degrees and 83% humidity, that is not good mushroom growing weather. If we don't get rain, I may not have much of a garden, either.

James made good use of some of those golden chanterelles last weekend - he made oven roasted breakfast potatoes with golden chanterelles, garlic, fresh herbs and pine nuts that was just outstanding.

This weekend is the "Winter Mushroom" cooking class at Millennium Restaurant. I'm assisting chef Eric Tucker and will be leading a mushroom foraging trip after the morning visit to the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market. If you're interested in the class, call Erica at 415.345.3900 x11 to see if there are any spaces left!

GARDENING: Saturday, I pulled up all my stakes and dead tomato plants, stacked tomato cages and built a potato condo (I promise a photo!). The potato condo needs a bit more dirt. I bought a bunch of red and yellow potatoes at Farmer Joe's in the Laurel District -- they had some nice baby Yukons which I hope will sprout so I can plant them in the potato condo. Garlic still is not in - I have to decide where I will put that.

Sunday, I helped James pull up his garden, too. He also harvested a big pile of purple carrots which seem to taste a lot sweeter without the purple skin.

LEMONS and other backyard citrus are in full swing. Tonight I zested 25 lemons with a microplane and poured 1.75 L bottle of 190 proof Ever Clear that my friends brought down from Portland -- I couldn't bring it on the airplane with me when I bought it there in November because it is a fire hazard.

I also made a killer pitcher of lemonade - and I am leaving 2 cups of lemon juice in the fridge so I can make another batch without defrosting cubes. I think I'll have a lot of nice lemony Vitamin C this week to combat all the bugs that seem to go around the office. Might be time to ask Barbara if I can pick more of her gorgeous Valencia oranges with my fruit picker.

DEHYDRATOR ACTION! This past week I have embarked on several flaxseed cracker experiments which have turned out quite well. First two batches were garlic/curry/cashew/flaxseed and orange curry catsup/black sesame/flaxseed. The next savory batch was homemade dried tomatoes with flaxseed, nutritional yeast, oregano, rosemary and thyme. I have raw cacao powder/agave/almond/flaxseed in the dryer right now. I just don't think there's a lot you can do "wrong" when it comes to making flaxseed crackers. I'll post some more actual recipes in a separate entry.

2008 Garden & Canning Inventory

GROWING IN MY GARDEN
Arugula (curly leaf)
Arugula (rocket)
Basil
Catnip
Chard (Rainbow)
Chives
Chocolate Mint
Japanese Cucumber x 2
Lavender
Oregano
Parsley
Peppermint
Peppers
Rosemary
Sage
Strawberries
Thyme
Tomatoes - 42 plants of 19 heirloom types
Tomatoes (~10 volunteers - mystery!)
Watermelon
Zucchini

HARVESTED
arugula
basil
broccoli rab
chard
cucumbers, Japanese
lavender
lettuce
oregano
parsley
peas, English
peas, Sugar Snap
peppermint
peppers
plums, red
strawberries
tomatoes

FORAGED
apples, green
apples, red-flesh
apricots
candy caps
golden chanterelles
figs
lemons, Eureka
lemons, Meyer
peaches, yellow
peaches, white
pears, Asian
pears, bartlet
persimmons
plums, green gage
quince
tomatoes

PRESERVED
applesauce, unsweetened
applesauce, unsweetened w/fresh ginger
apple pie filling
butter, quince
chutney, apricot
chutney, lemon-fig
chutney, lemon
chutney, peach-chipotle
chutney, peach
chutney, persimmon (3 types!)
golden chanterelles (18# dry sauteed & frozen)
infused vodka, apricot
infused vodka, santa rosa plum-ginger
infused vodka, green pear & vanilla
infused vodka, Asian pear
infused vodka, persimmon
jam, apricot
jam, apricot-chipotle
jam, fig
jam, green gage
jam, quince
jam, white peach
jam, yellow peach
jelly, apricot
jelly, white peach
jelly, yellow peach
jelly, yellow peach-chipotle
jelly, plum
jelly, plum habanero
jelly, plum lavender
jelly, plum spice
jelly, quince
juice, lemon
juice, Asian pear
juice, tomato
pesto, arugula
pesto, chard
pesto, basil
plum sauce
relish, Pottsfield
tomato sauce, red
tomato sauce, yellow
tomato sauce, orange

DRIED FRUITS
apples
cantaloupe
ginger
Asian pears
persimmons
cherry tomatoes
tomatoes

Ladybug bacchanal

Ladybug bacchanal
Originally uploaded by jennconspiracy

James and I went for a hike today and came upon part of the trail that was dripping with ladybugs - millions of them. Click through to see the other shots and look at some of the large versions of the photos...

The Problem of Peat Moss

I thought that gardening was basically safe -- growing my own seeds and planting them in the yard was just about the greenest thing a person could do, right?

After my tomato seedlings grew too fast and got too leggy, I looked for pots that were a bit deeper to repot them. At the Orchard Hardware & Supply, I noticed that they had "fiber" pots instead of peat pots. I read the label and was shocked to discover that peat pots are not at all good for the environment!

The fiber pots I purchased are made out of Coir -- the outer husks of coconuts -- a totally renewable resource. Coconuts grow 4x/year vs peat bog which grows at a rate of 1 mm/year. Harvesting coir does not harm the tree or the surrounding area -- the rest of the coconut is used (mostly for food). Coir is organic plant material and will biodegrade over time and does not result in mold and other problems inherent in peat moss pots and soil additives.

- 10% of all the world's fresh water is in peat bogs
- Amateur gardeners account for approximately 70% of the peat used in horticulture.
- Peat extraction requires draining an entire bog, irreversibly damaging a delicate ecosystem.
- Once dried, peat extractors remove up to 22cm of peat/year - the bog increases in depth only 1mm/year. It will take 220 years for the peat bog to renew itself, and the ecosystem that once supported wildlife and plant life is likely to never return
- Peat bogs act as a carbon sink, absorb 10-20% of the 7 gigatons of carbon produced by humans/year.
- Peatlands hold around 1/4 to 1/3 of the total carbon dioxide in the world, released very slowly through anaerobic decomposition. Harvesting results in the release of thousands of years of carbon held in peatlands into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

LINKS:
Coir as a replacement for peat moss
Sierra in News

Tomatoes!

It's all about tomatoes this week. Friday, I cleaned the tomato seeds that I had been fermenting since Sunday and put them in the Excalibur on the lowest setting to dry them up.

Both James & I picked as many ripe tomatoes as we could from our gardens at the end of the week. I even pulled up four tomato plants that were done (three were volunteer cherries).

Saturday, I spent the day doing housework and cleaning. I even had a pair of housekeepers come in to help out while I labeled, inventoried and organized all my jars of preserves and boxes of wine from Dry Creek & Anderson Valley.

Saturday night, James and I set 9 trays of tomatoes to dry in the Excalibur. For those of you who dehydrate, that results in about 3 half pint jars of dried cherry tomatoes (ha!). We dried some bigger tomatoes but I need to cut those into strips and dry them a bit more. We also got started with the yellow tomato sauce and then put it away to finish on Sunday.

Today, we dilly-dallied a bit, had chai & backgammon, went to his house, then to brunch and on errands. We had a nap and then finally started on making the tomato sauce around 6pm. James worked his buns off with me for 4 hours. I have been waiting for the sauce to cook down and processing the jars for the last two hours. Here's the result:

YIELD:

Dried tomatoes:
3 - 8 oz jars of dried cherry tomatoes from Jenn's garden

Yellow tomato sauce:
2 - 16 oz jars (both gardens, more Jenn's due to Wonderlights)

Orange tomato sauce:
9 - 12 oz jars (both gardens, mostly James due to enormous Hawaiian Pineapples)

Red tomato sauce:
12 - 16 oz jars (both gardens)

This probably isn't the last batch of sauce for us. There are still a lot of tomatoes on both our plants. I cut down dead parts and removed branches from a few plants that had no more fruit or flowers -- I need to do that again on Tuesday or Wednesday this week to help the plants mature the rest of the fruit.

I do want to make more dried tomatoes, too. We both have a lot of basil that is about to flower, so we need to make up more batches of pesto. I think I may just make oregano-thyme-basil-garlic-oil pesto to freeze -- no pine nuts -- so that I can use it to season my tomato sauce when I open it this winter.

FIGS: Asiya from Forage Oakland brought me a couple dozen figs - so I am going to make another small batch of fig preserves.

RHUBARB & RASPBERRIES: Probably the last of the season. I bought these at the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market on Tuesday and intended to make a big crisp but was totally off track. I may just freeze up the raspberries on a cookie sheet and make rhubarb pie or crisp later this week.

Paste Tomato Sauce-Off

This weekend I scored some killer tomatoes from an organic garden at a lovely private campground in Willits. These babies were huge -- like 7" long, looking more like big red peppers than tomatoes. The gardener said they were Romas -- and that all the big tomatoes had been picked and made into sauce already. I brought home about 10 of them and tonight I made a small batch of sauce (saving the seeds, of course) with these Romas, and a small batch of sauce with some of my Debarao tomatoes.

The Romas had a very sweet flavor before I even cooked them -- it's a lot hotter up there in Willits! The Debarao tomatoes had a very solid flesh and less juice than the Romas, and a very tomato-y taste. Both are good and after packing four small jars, I ate the rest of the sauce on warm bread.

YIELD:
2 - 8 oz jars Roma tomato sauce
2 - 8 oz jars Debarao tomato sauce

The Hawaiian pineapple and Yellow Ruffled are starting to come in, as are the Amana Orange. I think I am going to make some yellow and orange pasta sauce out of those babies, too. The Italian Tree tomatoes are starting to get really ripe, and may make a nice little batch of sauce as well.

I'm looking at buying an Excalibur dehydrator - we haven't had enough heat or sun for my solar dehydrator to work very well. I'm pretty disappointed in the lack of weather cooperation at tomato harvest time here.

When Life Hands You Lemons

Actually, it seems more difficult to get ahold of lemons lately. When I bought two 3L bottles of olive oil at Napa Valley Olive Oil Manufactory, I also picked up a pile of lemons so I could make some more lemon chutney this weekend. The first batch I made was with this recipe from Love and Cooking, but I might actually try this recipe from Nourish Me -- and I just got a copy of "Nourishing Traditions" and "Wild Fermentation," so am going to scour them for interesting ideas.

No rest for the wicked -- after backpacking in Yosemite (photos to be up on Flickr soon!) and three days at Harbin (where I had 5 massages in 3 days), I have a lot on my plate for this weekend:

• re-tie and stake tomatoes -- they are going nuts!
• weeding & watering
  
• finding a place to plant beans (where broccoli rab used to be), dill, garlic and purslane
• lemon chutney - zesting and juicing the lemons today, cooking tomorrow
  
• painting all the pieces for the solar dehydrator with spar varnish in preparation for putting them together (my friend Eric said he might even be up for helping with assembly)
• finish Matthew's quilt - it's all pinned, I just have to get it on the machine and do the top quilting
• buy more soil and clothesline (my line snapped in several places due to weathering!)

All that and I still plan to see Persephone's Bees at the Uptown tonight!

Freecycle Apricots, Apricot Jam & Catnip Mystery Solved

FREECYCLE FRUIT: I put a call out on Freecycle and made contact with a woman with an apricot tree full of ripe apricots, falling to the ground. I made a quick trip over there and picked up 12# of very large, ripe, gorgeous apricots. She also offered quinces when they ripen in late August, and persimmons in the fall ("the squishy kind," she said). She has a small apple tree, so I'm going to check on that as well.

While I started prepping the apricots for jelly and jam - a neighbor came by, and we had a chat. I gave him a jar of plum jelly and he promised to bring me some Santa Rosa plums, and offered me picking privileges when his fig tree ripens in a month or so.

APRICOT CANNING GOODNESS: Last night, I made up:

YIELD:
1 - half gallon of vodka & 14 apricots for Apricot brandy
3 - 12 oz jars apricot jam
2 - 16 oz jars of apricot jam
5 - 16 oz jars of apricot jelly

This morning I set to simmer a big pot of apricot chutney using about 4# of apricots, and I have about 28 choice apricot halves which I am going to candy tomorrow, and then dip in chocolate. Hopefully my kitty/housesitter won't eat all of them while I am on vacation!

I love Freecycle. I love neighbors and neighborhoods with fruit trees.

GARDEN: This evening, I returned at the same time as a neigbor just to the other side -- offered her some volunteer tomato plants. I gave her the three I dug up and put in water last Thursday, and dug up 3 or 4 more. I apologized that they were volunteers so I couldn't tell her if they were cherry or regular tomatoes and she said, "That's the fun part -- it'll be a surprise!"

The baby basil sprouts are looking great. The catnip isn't looking so great - but I found out why: George. Here, I thought I had over fertilized it or under or over watered. I caught him bent over into the pot, cleaning the last leaves off the thing. He's pretty darned ferocious when it comes to catnip and feathery toys. He could totally kick Dobson's butt, and yet he's so gentle with him and often ends up losing tufts of fur in their wrestling matches.

Time to round up the kitties and bike to Berkeley for dinner with my sweetie. I promise a post on a recent rash of thefts in this neighborhood due to war and recession.