Tis the Season

For strawberries!

We tried out a new u-pick farm this year. It is out by our favorite old apple farm which got plowed under a few years back when the orchardist decided he was too old to continue and none of his children wanted to take over. Some day I'm going to buy some land and put in an apple orchard but until then we love to drive out for u-pick. You name the fruit and we'll be there but right now it is full on strawberry season.

We made 25 pints of jam, had lots for fresh eating and even made strawberry shortcake. Sahara picked out this book from the library the week before and the whole story through she kept asking if we could make the same dessert the characters made. Turns out there is a recipe at the back of the book!

Last night I tried a different recipe, the one from the Joy but it wasn't nearly as delicious. So we have a keeper. I've been seeing strawberry shortcake recipes recently which call for macerating the berries in sugar and balsamic. We'll have to be adventurous and try that next. Oh yes, we'll be back out for more berries this weekend.

Great-Granny's Magnificent Strawberry Shortcake

2 cups flour
2 Tbs sugar
1 Tbs baking powder
a/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
1 egg, beaten
2/3 cup milk
strawberries
whipped cream

Preheat oven to 450. Sift dry ingredients together. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add egg and milk, stirring by hand just enough to moisten. Spred dough in a greased 8 by 1 1/2 inch round pan, building up edges slightly. Bake for 15 - 18 minutes. Remove cake from pan and cool on a rack for 5 minutes. Split into two layers; lift top off carefully. Alternate layers of cake, whipped cream, and strawberries, ending with strawberries on top.

In between showers

The tomatoes did finally go in at the end of last month. Lydia helped water them in. The chickens watched through our makeshift fence. They see our strawberries getting some color and occasionally flap up and over. We haven't moved the eggplant or peppers yet. The rain, oh the rain. At least our garlic, shallots onions and potatoes are huge and happy.


All our greens are growing fast but so are the slugs and snails. I go out in the dusk hour after the girls have been tucked into bed and pick them off one by one. Pablo brings me the Sluggo and shakes his head laughing. I beam up at him from my crouched stance in the realization that some loop is completed by feeding these slimy suckers to the chickens.
The deer have started coming round again. Fall and spring. We noticed nibbles on our dogwood last week and a broken branch on a young apple tree. This afternoon the girls and I watched this fellow taking a rest by blueberries.


We use an egg spray (blend one raw egg in a 1/2 gallon of water and spray it on any foliage they might munch on) to keep them away. It has worked better than anything else to deter the deer these past few years.

Paeonias

From now forward this will be known as the year we discovered Peonies.
Wow.
We had no idea.

that's me

This is the last paragraph of a NYT article I just finished reading:

Someday, you might build a wood-burning oven — right after you start making your own vinegar, raising honeybees and churning butter with cream from cows you milk. Until then, you can make pizzeria-quality pizza with the perfectly normal oven in your kitchen.

Big sigh.... the key word is the first word - Someday -

I did find a great article in Mother Earth News instructing me in how to build an outdoor oven/stove for only 300$. Do we have enough time to add another project for this summer?

In the meantime, it is pouring and we have 44 tomato plants in our greenhouse anxious to be planted in the garden. We had planned space for 18 - 10 roma and 8 heirloom slicers. Somehow they more than doubled this past month. FORTY FOUR! Where did they all come from?