Spirits

We bottled the wine in March. 2010 is a good wine year for our Concord.

We started the Rhubarb in early May. We always use the frozen rhubarb as it juices up nicer and a lot less work than pounding the fresh to get it to juice well. There is rhubarb, sugar and water only in our rhubarb.

Garden progress

Very rainy day. The spring flowers are beautiful the hyacinths, tulips and daffodils are all blooming now. Grandmas bleeding heart is beginning to bloom, every spring it makes me think of Grandma Mary she loved her flowers and always had a big beautiful bleeding heart! My tomatoes have moved outside and I am beginning to harden up all the plants so that by Memorial day or sooner they will be ready to go out in the gardens. The orchard is doing FANTASTIC!! This is the first spring that our new peach tree blossomed, 2 of the younger cherries are blossoming so maybe we will get some cherries this year, usually we only have one large one blossom so it is hard to get more than a handful of cherries. Our Nectarine tree has blossoms for the first time, as does our newer apricot. If the weather stay decent we should have an abundance of fruit this year. Too early to tell on the apples or pear tree but they should have blossoms. The large apricot trees are in full bloom and look beautiful. The sweet corn is in and more of the potatoes are peaking thru.

Garden progress

The garden is coming along. Plants in the cold frame are beginning to thrive, we had our first radish, asparagus, and rhubarb Sunday.

Tomato Project

Shawn put his tomatoes outside in a protected area outside his woodshop. The one in the wheel barrel is ultra protected and growing well.

Celebrate the change of seasons by seasoning some May Wine (maiwein) with "waldmeister"

Celebrate spring with spiced wine when the sweet woodruff blooms.

Woodruff is traditionally added to German wines (Rhine, Mosel) in spring to celebrate the coming of summer. The leaves taste like chamomile and cinnamon.

Peasant-rooted in tradition, select an inexpensive wine, like a Mosel. Pick early emerging leaves for best flavor. Add two large sprigs of woodruff to two cups of white wine, then add two tablespoons of honey or sugar and let seep overnight. Drink it over ice or as a spritzer.

Alternate recipes include adding brandy, sliced strawberries/oranges and sparkling wine.

UPDATE 5/12/11: Picked buds and leaves and added to wine, along with honey, to seep.  

 

Guardian of the Oregano Jungle

I am hoping to harvest this soon, but have not had a good dry period where I can cut first thing in the AM.  Until then, the jungle continues to grow.

This is off the hook, right?

UPDATE:

So, we cut it back this morning and will be twining it up tonight.  Always cut in the morning because the essential oil are stronger in the morning.

I like to tie them in bundles and then let them hang for a few weeks, away from direct sunlight. I have a place in the kitchen away from the main counters that works really well. Never had this much to do at one time before, so my process might change if this keeps up. I have a dehydrator and I've read that its a great tool for speeding the drying.

 

 

Tomato starts head outside!

We are going something different this year - in an effort to maximize our sunniest space. The garden bed is loaded with garlic (planted Oct); onions (planted Mar) and carrots (planted Apr). So it's impossible to use the same space for tomatoes - correction - the same dirt for tomatoes.

Instead we are going vertical up the side of the house. We have a combination of indeterminate and determinate plants: Sweets & Yellows (cherries), Brandywine (pinks), Heirlooms (a surprise), Borghese (sun-dried), Siltez (large, early), and Tomatillas. You can see the bar that we'll use to hang the support twine from at about window height.

The indeterminates we are planning to send of single support twines and prune hard to develop only the main line.

The determinate Tomatillas are going up the side in their own netting; but the determinate-Roma, Siletz and Borghese are going in other areas - with traditional staking.

At the other end we are adding zucchini up a tee-pee; and preparing a sunny corner for peppers.