Early Sunglow Hybrid Sweetcorn. 8.11.2021.

I was prepared to not like this variety. It took a little longer than Trinity, both planted May 9. So first harvest was about 90 days. Park's Seeds markets this one at 62 days, but that's doubtless in a much warmer climate than here. Early Sunglow is a "Regular Sweet" (SU) type, an older type that is not "Super Sweet". I think the "Super Sweet" types are mushy and just taste like sugar, not corn. The third type, "se+" or sugary enhanced, is good (See post on "Trinity"). I think I bought the seeds from Burpee, but I'm fed up with them for the following reasons - on the sweetcorn, they dont list days to harvest; they don't list the type of hybrid; they add cookies to your computer; last year I bought their "Bodaceous" tomato variety and it tasted like cardboard. 

 Actually, I discovered I like Early Sunglow better than Trinity. It has a more "corn" flavor and is still nice and sweet when harvested fresh. These ears are not as deeply yellow as the catalog pictures. Maybe they need more time to fully ripen, ot the photos are "enhanced", or it's my climate. Whatever, these are quite good. Also in the photo - Serrano and Jalapeño peppers, an "Alibi" cucumber, Golden Queen of Siberia heirloom tomato, and various cherry tomatoes.

Sweetcorn "Trinity". 8.11.2021

I like "Trinity"- good flavor, ears are good size, well-filled with big sweet kernels. I've been harvesting this one for a couple of weeks now.

Golden King of Siberia Tomato. 8.11.2021

 Golden King of Siberia is a Russian heirloom variety.  This is the first year that I have grown it.  Nice, big  beefheart type tomato.  Flavor is mild, tomato-flavor.  Not super sweet or super tart. I like it, will save seeds. Also in the photo, Ukranian Purple and various cherry tomato varieties.

Dwarf Tomato "Extreme Bush". 8.11.2021

So far Extreme Bush is the most productive of my container friendly, dwarf tomatoes. As a determinate variety, I don't expect a long season for this variety. It's been producing for a few weeks. The tomatoes are a good slicing size. Not beefsteak, but still a nice medium size tomato. Flavor is excellent - like Better Boy, like a good midwestern tomato-flavored tomato. I will save seeds from "Extreme Bush" tomatoes for next year's kitchen garden.

Peaches. 8.11.2021

Picked the first crop of the season from this peach tree. It's a seed-grown tree from "Oregon Curl Free", a variety promoted as resistant to the dreaded peach leaf curl disease that, in the maritine Pacific NW, is to peach trees what COVID is to humans. This tree doesn't get peach leaf curl disease at all, which is sort of amazing, and is better than it's parent. Anyway, there are lots more on the tree.

Pickled Eggs. 8.7.2021

I made a batch of pickled eggs. The recipe was from "The Delicious Table". The amount of eggs was right for two quart jars (18 eggs), but the vinegar solution is enough that I can use the extra to make some refridgerator dill pickles, soon. The ingredients are cider vinegar, water, peppercorns, pickling spice, salt, Jalapeños, garlic, eggs.

Kitchen Garden Harvest. 8.7.2021

 Pretty good crop I think.  It's keeping us out of the grocery store for this round of coronavirus.  The sweet corn is "Trinity". The beans are Ning's special NE Chinese beans.

Digging Potatoes. 8.7.2021

 I dug some more of the potatoes.  They seem to keep better in the ground, so I only dig what I need for a couple of weeks.  I should eat less of them.  I'm starting to look like a potato.  But they ate very good and cook nicely.

Resizing a Vintage Shirt. 8.7.2021

I found a vintage shirt that I liked. Back in the age of the dinosaurs, I owned a shirt with exactly the same fabric, only in green. This looks like batik but is printed cotton.  This one was way too big, but the chances of finding one in my size are remote. So I used a shirt that fit well, as a pattern, took this one partly apart, cut it using the other shirt as my guide, and sewed it back together. I thought about just cutting the body of the shirt narrower, but the sleeves wouldnt look right. So I took off the sleeves, and cut them the same as my better fitting shirt. Then I cut the body of of the shirt narrower too.

Before cutting, I sewed the new seams and tried it on to check the fit.

The hardest part was sewing on the sleeves. I had made the shoulders 1 1/2 inches narrower on both sides, and the body of the shirt about 2 inches narrower. The arm holes are curved. I made multiple tries before getting it right. All in all, I'm pretty happy with the shirt and now I can wear a walk down memory lane.

I'm also pretty happy with the seams. The original shirt had flat felled seams, which dont have any rough edges insidecor out. I could have zig zagged the new seams, but they wouldn't look as smooth or as nice. Flat felled edges are not too hard, and my result was OK for a novice.

Kitchen Garden Harvest. 8.4.2021

This is a good time of year for the kitchen garden. The tomatoes on the right are from the dwarf variety, "Clare Valley Pink". Not a vigorous plant, and not many tomatoes, but they are good flavor. The oblong tomatoes are "Purple Russian". Very good production and very good flavor. The zucchinis are from the Burpee hybrid, I forget the name. The cukes are various types, mostly sneaky ones that evade detection until they are quite large. The apple is "Gravenstein", the only ripe one on the tree.

Zucchini makes a nice meal, cut into fries, sprinkled with garlic salt, pepper, some hot pepper and season salt, and olive oil then air fried for 8 min at 375. I mixed in some green beans too, but the zucchini is better.

Purple Russian tomato.

Clare Valley Pink tomato. I think this plant is off the irrigation line, which might explain why it didnt grow much.

Dahlias. 8.4.2021

Not much to say about these. They brighten the room!

Rufus is the Best Dog on Earth! 8.2.2021

Flowers. 8.1.21

Four O'clocks and poppies, all volunteer. Daylilies that I grew from my own hybridizing a few years back. And squashes, quite fragrant and honeybees love them.

Dahlias and Nasturtiums. Also more volunteer poppies. The nasturtiums are volunteer too. The dahlias are saved from last year.

Three Types of Slicing Tomato. Goliath, Russian Purple, and BrandyFred Dwarf. 8.1.2021

 Today I harvested the first of the big slicing tomatoes.

Dwarf BrandyFred.  I can't tell this from Brandywine.  Really super delicious.

Russian (or Ukranian) Purple. I don't know why they call these purple. More mauve-ish to my eyes.

Im not sure where to count a start date for these. Goliath had a setback due to baking in the wall-o-water. I'm estimating about May 1 although that is not perfect. If we use that date, each of these is 90 days. Early Goliath Hybrid.

Sweetcorn Progress Note. 8.1.2021

These are the variety "Ambrosia". I planted the seeds 5.23.21. They are starting to silk and tassle. The first ones that I planted, Sunglow and Trinity, are not quite ripe. I harvested two ears of Sunglow today, The kernels were small, but they were sweet and the flavor was very nice. Give them another week or two to fatten up.

Blackberries. 8.1.2021

These are the variety "Triple Crown". This is the only variety so far that works for me, produces reliably and well, is thornless, and the berries are delicious. Today I picked about 10 cups, enough for a big batch of blackberry jam.

Fig Harvest and Fig Jam. 7.30.2021

Both Lattarula and Desert King are bearing now. The fruits are quite similar. The fig with the dripping nectar is "Lattarula" or the Italian Honey Fig.

Since it's a lot of figs all at once, I made some jam. I followed the Sure-Jell forvlow sugar recipe. I think it gels a little too firm, but it's very tasty. I could see lowering the sugar level some more, but the recipe on the package insert says not to. I do love this jam. It's also quite pretty.

Still Jammin'. Shiro Plum Jam. 7.30.2021

I made four batches of Shiro plum jam. The plums can become too soft and juicy as they ripen, but also very sweet and flavorful. The tree is so prolific, and almost never has an off year. They make a great, delicious jam. I made two batches using pectin for low sugar recipes, and two batches using Pomona pectin, with no sugar added. That last was for Ning, who likes the very, very tart result. It's like those lemon candies. The low sugar version is still plenty sweet, and I like that very much.

The jar on the left, which is more golden, was made with the low sugar pectin (Sure-Jell). The one on the right is more yellow, using the Pomona and no added sugar. I guess the difference is either the sugar, or the Sure-Gell is apple pectin while the Pomona is citrus pectin. The Pomona was also a bit more creamy in texture, while the Sure-Jell is more jelly-like. I noticed that inthe past when I was making freezer jams. The pectins I am using. It depends on the Recipe. I'd like to use less of the one-package per batch types, because they cost too much. However,the recipes are often specific forvthe product and claim they can't be interchanged. I don't know.