Melons & Cantaloupes

canteloupe 2 Cantaloupes and melons are a welcome surprise for those of us in the Inland Pacific Northwest Region gardens. We were able to successfully get some canteloupe to produce in the garden this year. With our season so short we were surprised when these guys actually grew in time to harvest. The taste is sweet and great, spoiling us for store-bought melon forever. We will be starting them earlier inside before putting them out to see if we can actually get them up to a larger size and ripe before things get colder.

I found this article by Susan Mulvihill, about growing them here that has a lot of helpful tips.

In the Garden: Melons worth the extra effort

It is possible that we planted Napoli canteloupe but I am not sure as I did not write it down. I know that is a crime but I did have some distractions this year. Will try to improve in the future in identifying what we are actually planting.

Apple Tree

This apple tree was trimmed back drastically the year before last year after damage in a wind storm and last year had no apples. Here are the first apples coming in this year, less than a dozen, but absolutely heavenly! Sometimes the wait is worth it. Can’t wait till we have a full crop next year…

I can smell the applesauce, bubbling on the stove. The cinnamon throughout the house with the apple cider stirring. Oh, and don’t forget the heavenly scent of Pete’s pies… apple pie, Yummmm. Washington State has the world’s best apples! I love them.

What are Winesap Apples?

We are not positive if these are Winesap apples. They could also be Macintosh. But for now we are going to assume that they are Winesap. These are kind of medium-sized fruit fitting in the palm of your hand. They are solid skinned with firm sweet/sour honey flavored white or slightly yellow flesh. They are red with yellow/green stripes on the outside. When you sit them on the table they don’t sit perfectly straight as they are a little unevenly grown with the stem kind of off-center. They are superb apple pie fruit and tasty lunch partners anytime! If you’d like to learn more about these kinds of apples check out this Apple site.

Canning Tomatoes

Canning

tomato canning fooling around We are canning tomatoes. I was fortunate to have a 12-year-old fabulous helper today. His name is Nathanael, and he is doing this canning thing for the first time. He did not volunteer for the position but instead was coerced into it by his Grandma. We were down in the garden today and have some tomatoes harvested. You can see some of them on the table being sorted through to find the ripe ones to put in the canning pile.

Wait a minute. Is that worker fooling around instead of sorting?

Hours later, we are finally ready to can our tomatoes with a good selection on the counter. We had quite a wide variety this year due to many volunteers popping up all over our garden. Beef steaks, Burgundy Reds, Glaciers, Early Girls, Romas, and Large Cherry tomatoes. Really, really large cherry tomatoes.

Complicated, canning tomatoes

Nathanael learned the whole canning process this year. How to blanch the tomatoes in boiling water for 10-12 seconds and then quickly set in cold water in the sink. It is fun to see how easy it is to peel and core them this way. We work to get our jar funnel with hot lid seals and rings ready and waiting for us on the counter next to the stove. Nathanael getting jars tomato canning jar bath

After a simmer in the saucepan with us stirring constantly, we are ready for the next step. Pouring the hot tomato sauce into hot jars lined up on the counter, cleaning the jar lids and carefully placing the seal, and tightening the ring. During this simmering process for the tomatoes, we are also heating up our big canning pot “water bath” so we can seal the jars in it after we put the sauce into the jars.

Putting the jars into the boiling water bath is kind of tricky. Hot and a little dangerous. Canning has one of the strangest tools ever invented. Here is Nathanael getting used to the thing-a-ma-jig plier thingy used to pick up the steaming hot jars out of the boiling water. got tomatoes canned

Every year we put a supply of products; tomato sauce, catsup and salsa in the pantry covering our needs for the next 9-12 months. We also end up giving canned foods to family and friends but only if they return the empty jars. It is kind of an unspoken rule. We enjoy eating fresher, sweeter vegetables without additives.

Rose Offered its First

Fragrance

Yellow Rose Blossom — Blossom Yellow Rose

The yellow rose offered its first blossom today. The bloom appeared on a hybrid tea bare-root rose planted one year ago. It is a true beauty. There is a slight fragrance from its petals and it is opening in a most graceful form. Though these floral beauties have an abundance of thorns, they are still favored flowers for many gardeners. There is just an overpowering attraction to the fragrance that they fill the air with along with their soft fluffy petals.

My husband and I both love roses and gardening. On the first date we had, I saw his rose garden. His green thumb showed beautifully with a dark red rose bush covering the whole corner of his garden right at the sidewalk that you walked into his house. This rose looked so happy and full of fragrant blossoms I immediately knew he was a man to take a really close look at, a keeper.

Ongoing Growth

Many years have passed since we first met, and we have both built a large garden now in the wilderness of Elk WA, a beautiful mountainous area in the rural areas of northern Spokane. We do not have an unlimited budget so the planting of beautiful flowers has taken longer than the staples like vegetables, berries, fruit, and spices, one thing at a time.

I will have to render this beauty in the studio.