• Blog - Kitchen - Outdoors

    T Tuesday: Juneberry jam edition

    Welcome to yet another edition of T stands for Tuesday hosted by Dr. E aka Elizabeth, caretaker of Bleubeard and Squiggles.

    20150629_8030So what’s a Juneberry you ask? I love putting words in your mouth…makes me feel all powerful and full of myself.

    20090623_2733 But seriously…ever heard of a Juneberry? How about a Saskatoon berry? Or perhaps a Serviceberry? Until recently I didn’t know that they all happen to be the same thing. And even more so…we have a tree in our yard. Wish I’d realized that 12 years ago when it was much smaller!!

    20150629_8044Of course they are much tastier when left until they are a deep purple…but you have to fight the birds for them.

    I found several recipes online for Juneberry jam but decided to go with this low sugar version.

    20150629_8029Isn’t it pretty!?! I ended up with a partial jar that went into the fridge for immediate consumption.

    I’m not a big sweets girl…(unless it’s chocolate…which I’m allergic to but I’m willing to deal with the consequences occasionally but that’s a whole other issue)…so a slightly tart jam suits me just fine. Honestly I haven’t tried it on bread yet…just the spoon. Slightly tart and quite full of seeds. It will depend on if anyone else likes the jam if I bother with all the tedious picking again. It would be interesting to know if you could make wine or mead or some sort of adult beverage from these berries. More research I guess.

    Speaking of research…can anyone help me with the name of this flower?

    20150629_8035I believe it starts with a “C” but I threw out the handy dandy marker that came with the plant. I want to write it down so I can remember to purchase more next year.

    I’m not sure what’s on the docket for today other than talking to my in-laws. The Twin Cities area got hit with some pretty big thunderstorms yesterday…large hail, winds and heavy rain. We got very little hail here and not much of it so the garden is fine. We heard reports of two inch hail in their area  though. UGH..that would be awful!

    I have to show you my rouge bean plants too…I did not buy climbing beans but 4 of my plants have decided to climb.

    20150629_8038I’ll be putting in some bamboo stakes today.

    What are you doing today?

  • Blog - Outdoors

    T Tuesday: tour edition

    Welcome to another edition of T stands for Tuesday. Come with me for a little walk around the yard today. You won’t believe how huge the tomatoes are!! FYI…picture heavy post

    We’ll start were we left off last week. The former playset.

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    The sand box has been removed and all that’s left are some bare spots in need of a load of dirt and grass seed.

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    I got a little carried away with flowers this year but I’m really enjoying them.

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    Of course many of them are perennials which suits me perfectly.

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    Here’s one of the crazy horseradish plants along with some tiny cucumber plants. Only one survived the transplant to out doors after our strange spring. I just replanted some seeds. It remains to be seen if they ever get big enough to produce.

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    Here’s the same deck box garden from a different angle. Those are my yellow pear tomatoes.

    Remember where they started this year??

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    Hey look…there’s the playset in the background.

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    And we can’t forget the obligatory beverage for T stands for Tuesday. Ice water for the humid afternoon we had while taking these photos. Heavy rain early in the day gave way to a sticky afternoon.

    Continuing my backward progression around the house we come to this sad bucket of dirt.

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    There are seeds in there…I set it in the sun hoping they’d germinate. If not I’ll throw something else in there…perhaps some daisy seeds for a splash of texture and color.

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    The big garden or shed garden or perhaps deer feeding station.

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    Some things are doing wonderful like my peppers and a rouge carrot.  My beans not so much. I’ve replanted seeds twice now after only a handful came up.

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    The herbs I transplanted from a Trader Joe’s herb pot are getting really big.  Behind them is the other horseradish plant we inherited.

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    I have beef steak tomatoes in this garden…nice thick stems and blossoms. Hooray!

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    One of my Egyptian Walking Onions is starting to look real interesting. I inherited these with the horseradish.

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    Not surprisingly the clover is looking fantastic. *grin*

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    I picked up these great hanging pots at Walgreen’s of all places. I couldn’t pass them up for the price.

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    The front walk pots aren’t looking the best this year. I was a little late in planting them.

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    I do really like these ones though. I picked up with watering can half filled with dirt at a garage sale this spring for $2. It’s a nice edition to my eclectic bunch.

    It wouldn’t be Tuesday without a full to-do list  for me. I’ll be around to visit my T companions at some point…have patience.

    What are you doing today?

  • Blog - Outdoors

    T Tuesday: second garden edition

    Good morning! I’m once again linking up with T stands for Tuesday where we grab a beverage and have a little chat hosted by Elizabeth.

    I talked about my garden here at home as well as the one at my in-laws but you’ve never seen the the space at the in-laws.20150606_7893

    It’s a really big garden! They downsized from the original when the critters got so bad they had to put a 5ft fence around.

    20150606_7931She has a huge strawberry patch! We picked almost 4 quarts last Saturday. YUM!!  The boy snapped this photo of us covering the patch with bird netting after the harvest.  He told me he took a few photos when I asked him to put away my camera. He said he found photography relaxing. 🙂

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    After a hot day in the garden there we came home, had a late lunch and a well earned glass of wine.

    Any guess on what these flowers are??

    You’ll never guess…  Horseradish!! My horseradish was blooming. I cut off the tops to save the energy for the plant.

    I, of course, have a few errands today. I hope to be back inside before the forecast 97°F hits this afternoon. YUCK!

    What are you doing today?