Last year we did nothing with all of our Transparent apples. They ripen early, are mealy/mushy within minutes of coming off the tree, and when they fall, the bruise takes up half the dang apple. Plus, as I mentioned once before, the deer love them. And last year, the deer pretty much had their fill.Not so this year, you pesky ruminants! Bruised, mushy apples aren't much for munching, but they'll make a good sauce. So far I've made two small batches of applesauce with just apples picked up off the ground. Three cottage cheese containers worth. We'd make applesauce anyway, with our good apples that ripen a little later, but this way we can save more of those for cider and pie and eating.
One of these days I'm planning on whipping out the apple picker and getting a few big Transparents off the tree, sans bruises. I think they'll make some good dried apples. We'll see. It's a productive tree; I'm glad they're more than deer bait this year.
Pulled up red and yellow onions and shallots today. Most of them were tiny, though each type had a few big ones. I never seem to have a full success with onions.
And! I pulled the plastic off the hoop house today, to snip away at blossoms that will never make it to fruit by fall. It wasn't until after I covered everything up that I noticed those red beauties. I had to scootch in on my stomach and reach way around to get them. It's crazy in there. Because of the low light, I picked a few that probably should have been on the vine a little longer, but they'll ripen OK in the window. This is the earliest we've ever had big tomatoes, so I'm considering the hoop house a major success. It just needs to be bigger. Which it will be, next year.
It was pretty wild looking over and seeing a whole clutch of ripe toms. They were quite tasty on tonight's hearty chicken salad. Oh yes.
And! I pulled the plastic off the hoop house today, to snip away at blossoms that will never make it to fruit by fall. It wasn't until after I covered everything up that I noticed those red beauties. I had to scootch in on my stomach and reach way around to get them. It's crazy in there. Because of the low light, I picked a few that probably should have been on the vine a little longer, but they'll ripen OK in the window. This is the earliest we've ever had big tomatoes, so I'm considering the hoop house a major success. It just needs to be bigger. Which it will be, next year.
It was pretty wild looking over and seeing a whole clutch of ripe toms. They were quite tasty on tonight's hearty chicken salad. Oh yes.
6 comments:
Congrats on all that harvest! They all look yummy... and Hooray for Animal, Vegetable, Miracle!
mmmmm....stupendous tomatoes! what variety?
as for uginons, what is your planting culture?
three cheers for hoop houses!
Nice! Meghan and I just made quite a lot of applesauce, ourselves. From another spastic apple tree, but this one likes to just keep it's fruit on the tree until it rots, or until you bite into one and then instantly begins to turn brown. Good rosy applesauce, though. Unfortunately we have made a lot and don't have one of those fancy auxiliary freezers.
Our tomatoes have begun to ripen, although they definitely did not appreciate the rain last week and some of them started to split. I guess that's yet another advantage of the hoop house.
Looks yummy!
I think the toms are Stupice. But I might be wrong. Hard to tell what's where since everything pretty much grew together.
Onion planting culture. I don't even know what that means. We always plant starts of them. And a few get big, and most stay small. Compost and all that s***. I don't know. It might have to do with placement.
Hoop hoop--Hoopray!
what a beautiful bounty! enjoy all of your locally and homegrown goodies!
Mmmmm fresh tomatoes. I'm in the middle of that book right now and it's changing my life. Can't wait to start growing things!
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