pop, pop, POP!

That was the sound of the kitchen Saturday night.  How can I possibly narrow down these photos to just a few?  There's no way, so you will be subjected to all of them - I mean come on, they're strawberries!

Strawberry season is about 3 weeks ahead of normal this year.  The weather was great for picking, low 60's and cloudy and no mosquitoes.  I may have mentioned that I ripped my strawberry beds out about 3 years ago.  This is why...

Our immediate area is famous for strawberries, they love the beach apparently :)  Since my beds can't put out as much as we need and take up valuable space the rest of the year I leave this one to the local strawberry farmers.  In a 5 minute drive I can pick as much as I need, all organic and as fresh as they get.

Everyone could use a helping "hand" while picking berries!

Total picked: 21 lbs

The kids are getting better at picking now, aren't picking the biggest ones and are able to judge ripeness and move quicker this year.  You have to be quick to live in my house :)

Where to start?

No potato mashers or food processors to wash here, I told Finn to wash up and dive in "old skool" to get the job done quick - he loved it, but he loves anything to do with berries, he's probably take a bath in it if I told him to.

Next we were left with over a gallon of pure strawberry puree and 2 sheets of whole berries for the freezer.  

Time to jam.  If you haven't used Pomona's Pectin, you are missing out!  This is a two part mixture that uses calcium to activate the pectin, meaning you can make jam with no sugar!  If you are the type like me that just loves to pop straight berries into your mouth, then you appreciate a pure jam.  The amount of sugar in most jam recipes really freaks me out, so I love this stuff.  For those canning chemical compound nerds out there (like me?!) this is "LM" (low-methoxyl) pectin using dicalcium phosphate.  There are some other low/no sugar pectin powders out there, but they aren't quite the same, and the results aren't as reliable.  It can be hard to find, especially to have in stock this time of year but look in your local health/organic food store, and then remember next year to just order it online ahead of time - that's my lesson learned, I just got lucky as the only place in town to have it only had 2 boxes left.  The price here was $4.99, one box makes several batches.  This stuff can gel water!

I ended up with 13.5 pints of pure organic strawberry jam.  One batch was pure fruit and the other batch was made with just a touch (about 1/4 cup) organic cane sugar and drizzled with honey.

Had to come back and edit - what good is a jam post without a photo of the jam?

In all from 21 lbs of strawberries I ended up with 13.5 canned pints of jam, 2 gallon bags of frozen whole strawberries, 4 pints frozen pure strawberry puree and a tray of strawberry puree frozen into cubes and later into a freezer bag.  I find the cube size is perfect for adding into smoothies or flavoring a small batch of popsicles.  I always keep lots of puree in the freezer to add to our homemade strawberry ice cream too!

Pretty cost effective since even at the higher price this year of $1.59/lb we spent just over $33.00 on 21 pounds of berries turned into a year's worth of goodies and "fruit on a shelf"!

I hope you have all gotten your berry fix for now and can get those canning jars organized and supplies together, they will be coming soon to you if our early season is any indication!

Happy Picking!

me - speechless?

21 pounds picked...

...all processed into various forms, with 1/2 gallon of fruit puree I haven't decided what to do with.  Kitchen has been cleaned, hubby is making dinner and I'm going to collapse on the couch in a strawberry coma.  Details to come later.

Take note, it's not often I am this speechless :)

End of April Garden, lots of pics!

Windy as heck here, but I'm back in the garden at least!  Perfect temps for working, about 64º.  I spent the day pretty much fixing what the wind has toppled, checking on the tomatoes and "planning" for tomorrow's planting.

???

No, that's not the way I planted that LOL.  Wind?  Voles?  I don't know but one big root was still attached, the rest look like they were cut - hmmm...  Ground Apples, anyone? 

Ugh, I feel like I'm the only one who sees Lamb's Quarter as a weed LOL... no I did not plant that...

Remember my elation that my Artichokes were finally coming back every year?  See that nice one behind Finn?

Yeah, don't worry, this year it's the same end result - dead.

I was meaning to kill that anyways.  :(

But, gardening is like raising livestock sometimes, every now and again you will have to bring out the dead.  

I can't feel depressed for long however, because there is so much that is good in the garden!

Onions

I normally don't see these blooms until early June!

Chives looking as pretty as - well, chives.

Happy Dance!  Finally a root VEGGIE (that's for you, Susan) that grows well here at the beach!  My first year with turnips and I am so excited, even more so because I tried so hard to like radishes the way I did when I was younger, but hate 'em now - but love turnips!

Picked a bunch, I sense a roast pork loin tonight!

Lettuces are really producing now

No more fear of decimating them for a salad!

Turnip & Lettuce Bed

The area off the deck is ready for the hummingbirds a bit early this year.  Catmint & Salvia are already in full bloom.  Purple Homestead Verbena has self seeded vigorously all over the yard and is amazing this year.  If you look carefully in the foreground of the Hollywood Juniper, you will see the normally 4 ft tall Verbena has risen to 6 ft so their little purple heads can get some sun, and it's only April!

Tomorrow is a huge day, it's strawberry picking day, hopefully jam canning day, and direct seed day.  The strawberry fields are open way early this year and I need to get my fill.  Last year was awful, the berries came ready and it was already in the upper 90's in May and picking was torture.  Tomorrow should be in the mid-60's and cloudy and I'll have the whole family's hands to help.  Bummer that the berries will be done by the time the annual Strawberry Festival comes around over Memorial Day weekend, but I'm just glad the farmers are only dealing with an early harvest and not a bust.  Will also be seeding all the summer squash, cukes & beans tomorrow, I hope!  If you don't see a post it's because I'll be in a back brace on the couch :)

3rd Grade Research

I'm still waiting for the rain to subside so I can get into the garden, I can't complain though since we went from fire restrictions and drought to 5 days of rain, and it's been the nice steady slow rain that is so good for the plants.  I'm eager to get out there and check on the tomatoes and peppers, we had several nights in the low 40's, not good for them.  Today it is supposed to get to 80º and then highs more seasonable the rest of the week in the upper 60's.  

Until I can get some photos of the garden, I'll post the cool school projects that are resulting from the field trip last week to the National Zoo in D.C.  The kids had actual "research assignments" up in D.C. with different groups taking on different habitats to study and wasted no time in recreating them, as they were on display yesterday morning!

The kids have all done a fabulous job - I kind of wish I had time to make one, since it looks like a fun and creative way to spend the day, but I have so many more uninteresting chores to contend with :)

I should have labeled them, but I was pressed for time since I was on my way to go see Loch be recognized for making Principal's List yet again - that means all "A's" on his report card and we are SO PROUD of him!  Still wondering where his real parents are - just kidding - he gets the smarty pants gene from my mom, it skips a generation, bahahaha!  Oh and I got another bumper sticker... now they give out little squares that say "Again" to slap over the original "my kid is better than (insert whatever here).  Clever, LOL.

Not to be outdone, Finn is unleashing his own creativity at home...

We are still discovering where Finn's talents lie, as you can see below.  We had a "talent night" where we asked the Cub Scouts to show the other boys "something interesting" LOL... Finn chose to show the boys how to tie a tie... I'm not sure if the boys were impressed or holding in their laughter!  The reason Finn doesn't wear a uniform is that he isn't old enough for our den yet - our Cubs call him their "mascot" :)

Just to make sure my post is sufficiently random, here's a stir-fry fix for Mama Pea!  Still working on lots of peppers, beans and snow peas in the freezer...

It looks like the sun is starting to creep out, so hopefully I will get some end-of-April garden photos this afternoon!  

Sugar Rush!

Bear with me as I post yet more non-gardening photos.  It was COLD here and we had downpours all weekend into Monday so there wasn't anything going on in the garden, except some very cold tomato & pepper plants.  It was 43º here this morning, very odd for us at this time of year.  So far this week has been really busy with Loch's class stuff and Cub Scout stuff so I'm just now getting around to recapping the weekend!


So you want to see some of the cakes that showed up at the Cake Auction/ Youth Fundraiser the other night?  They were all amazing!  This is only a small portion of them, lots more showed up after I snapped pics and there were creme pies galore coming out of the fridge too!

How cute are the centerpieces?!  It was a Friday Fish Fry, so the youth jumped on that theme and did these as well as served up the dinner to all the guests.

 ... yours truly did the one below, courtesy of Mama Pea's recipe!  It went for $36, and there was quite a bit of bidding on it :)  Mama Pea, I was cornered in the hallway Sunday morning with the winning bidder gushing about how good it was, her and her hubby looked about 5 lbs heavier on Sunday, just kidding :)

lots of berries making appearances -

Below was some kind of apple/sour cream/praline concoction with caramel frosting that I heard was amazing!  This one I think might have gone for near $40.

photos of the youth serving up dinner to the crowd, just about everyone here brought a dessert to auction so I think we made a decent amount for the kids' summer camps!

Finn's Sunday School teacher made this one and it definitely had kid appeal - Finn made me bid like crazy but we got it!  :)

Speaking of going for the kid bids - BRACE YOURSELF ...

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are you sitting down?

better yet, it ended up at our table!  (but it didn't go home with us LOL!)  My friend bid this one like crazy and paid $60, awesome for the kids, and bonus since she has a friend  who had a birthday the next day!

Friday Fish Fry, Friends and Sugar Bombs, great way to spend the evening!  :)

I've got one more post I'll put up with some other kid classroom things going on, then it's back to talking plants and gardens!  (well, for the most part!)

Baking and other stuff

It's been one crazy, hectic week.  Between getting plants in, getting Thing One packed off for his field trip, kids activities, Master Gardener stuff and baking for a church fundraiser, I'm exhausted.  I guess this is just training for harvest & canning season, right?

I wrote before that I was considering letting go of the Master Gardener thing since it was becoming difficult making time for it, but it's spring and my favorite program of all is the 'Ready, Set, Grow!' program a group of us does for the local elementary schools.  I had 7 classes this week and the kids are so awesome, and really seem to like our program.  Basically, we have each class for an hour and get to teach them basic horticulture principles, along with stressing the importance of beneficial insects and not using chemical pesticide sprays.  It coincides with the end of their science unit on plants, so the kids were amazing, and knew most of the answers to the questions we asked!  They also get to plant sunflower and marigold seeds in cups to raise in their classroom windows and then plant in their school gardens when ready.  Some of these kids have gardens at home, but there are also classes with kids from less than optimum "growing conditions" at home so it feels really good to show these kids the joy of being outside and getting to know their plants and surroundings.

A peek at one of the classes:

My favorite part is what I have deemed the "touch tank", after those touch tanks in the aquarium & science exhibits.  Each morning before I head to school, I go out and collect whatever I have that is interesting and currently "happening" in my own yard and garden.  Below I have azaleas since our area is pretty famous for them, large Hosta leaves, variegated leaves, Fuchsia and Bleeding Hearts (the girls LOVE them!), cotton I grew last year, and lots of herbs for them to squish and smell like rosemary, mint, lemon balm, thyme, etc.  With the other Master Gardeners bringing their own things from their gardens, we have quite a layout for them to see.  The kids and teachers are really receptive and appreciative of us being there so it makes for a fun morning.  All the girls left class with azaleas in their hair, too cute!

This year is my first year as a "Team Leader" in the schools.  Basically it means I do the talk before the presentation of the film we show, tell the kids what Master Gardeners do, and where else in the city they can go to see other projects we are involved in that might interest kids such as the Farmer's Market Community Garden, or our Rain Garden and Chesapeake Bay "Buffer Zone" Garden at the Virginia Tech Agricultural Research Station.  

The gal that is in charge of the whole program surprised me with a beautiful gift the other day:

My own "Scout Leader Apron"!  She knew I was a Scout Leader and thought I needed one of these, are you kidding?  Of course I need that, it's gorgeous!  She is one awesome lady and the word "busy" doesn't even begin to describe her.  She's been an E.R. nurse by choice for many years, a Scout Leader herself, is a quilter, and she is at every project I can think of in the Master Gardener program, as well as keeping up her own gardens.  I noticed the apron had a tag on it with her name and web address, so no doubt she is selling her creations, too.  She said she is retiring from nursing now and I can't imagine how much more she will be involved in this summer!

Loch has been busy in his school garden this past week.  Here is one of his beds they just planted with lettuces, they also have potatoes and strawberries that are doing really well -

My big project for yesterday was baking a cake that looked presentable.  My church is having a fundraiser tonight and "auctioning" desserts to raise money for the kids' summer camps.

Of course I turned to Mama Pea's recipes!  My favorite by far is the Cranberry Almond Cake she posted, I made it for a Thanksgiving dinner and it was a hit, so that's my go-to dessert when looks count :)

Problem is, I can't seem to turn a nice looking cake out of one of those tube pans she uses to save my life!  So of course, I had to make two cakes, you know, the better looking one to go to church and the other one for us to test and make sure it isn't poison...LOL!

So here are the unglazed cakes, on the right I used the tube pan...what is my problem?  The one on the left I decided to layer upside down in a Bundt cake pan and when I flipped it out I was pretty happy with it. Crazy the different appearances of the same cake, but I assure you they taste the same!

My funky tube pan cake actually looked pretty good once glazed, this one we ate up already (with the help of my neighbors) :)

The other one make the cut to go to church tonight...

I don't even like cranberries and I LOVE this cake, and it's so easy to make - so go make one for yourself!  It's Mama Pea's recipe not mine so you know it will taste good :)