Let The Harvesting & Canning Begin!

June 13, 2012
The mild winter and good spring weather has pushed vegetable, fruit and flower growth ahead by a week or so this year. No late frost hit my gardens either so all looks very promising for a bumper harvest.  I have been picking 1-2 lbs. of asparagus every other day for a few weeks now.  It is delicious and a few lucky friends and family visitors have gone home with some to cook if they weren't here for a meal.  The rhubarb is growing like gangbusters as well and that means PIE MAKING.   Twice I have made my big sheet pan of rhubarb squares for sharing, one for the Union Church coffee hour and then at the June garden club meeting. Each sheet pan is th equivalent to four pies. A few additional pies have been made for home use.  This rhubarb harvest may well continue all summer.  The asparagus will go on for a few more weeks and then I have to resist and let it all go to seed so it is rejunivated for next year's crop. Two years ago I added a third bed of asparagus to my gardens and so next year the crop should be larger expendentially when I can first harvest from that new bed.

In addition to the beginnings of lettuce, radishes and garlic scapes harvestings, the big garden news is the world of strawberries.  This crop looks like the best even and began about ten days ago...a week earlier than last year. I have now harvested over 22 quarts of them and there is no end in site. About seven quarts have been given away to lucky neighbors and friends and the jam making and fresh berry eating is going strong at home. I have made 15 jars of strawberry jam and 11 jars of strawberry-rhubarb jam to start the canning effort. I have six quarts on the counter from yesterday's picking effort so need to get busy making more jam.  Last year the harvest reached 40 quarts and I made over 40 jars of strawberry jam.

So far this gardening season I have been blest with some extra hands in my garden thanks to some garden club colleagues and neighbors, the Squires family. They are all going to share in the bounty and their help is so greatly appreciated!  Even with the various additional challenges facing me this spring, I feel I am on top of the gardening situation thanks to this help.  My challenges include the cataract surgery process I am going through.  Both eyes are being done and there must be a two week gap between surgeries. The second one will be done tomorrow.  I now have 20/20 vision for distance in my left eye and hope to have the same in the right eye after surgery.  I will need reading glasses for all work within a couple feet of my face but no glasses for beyond that point. I can now read the scroll line and scores on the TV from across the room...with my left eye. It certainly has been strange and somewhat limiting to have one good eye and one lousy one for the past two weeks but a burden worth bearing. I have worn glasses since I was a little boy so it will be quite a change for me.

The other challenge is also a long range blessing.  As reported in the last blog entry, Julian, Roxi and Cotton are moving to Maine. They have bought a house in Biddeford about five miles from me on Ferry Road and are in the process of preparing it for the projected late fall/early winter move-in moment.  So I am now cutting another lawn! Fortunately a riding mower awaits me when I travel to their place to tackle the easy project when they are not available to do it.  Some brush clearing was also needed and I try to help with other tasks when they arrive for brief visits and unloading of some of their belongings brought from Brooklyn. Roxi and Julian haven't been as available to help in my gardens this year because of this new adventure but I am sure in the long run they will be able to do alot more than their great efforts in previous years, as well as be able to help me enjoy feasting on the bounty from the gardens. I have given them orders to NOT plant a vegetable garden at their new place but help and enjoy the big gardens at Schlaver Seed Farm. Obviously, they are more than willing to do that.