Snow? Seriously?

Lewisburg.

It's snowing here today. Mid-October. As of mere moments ago:



And we just had our first frost - light enough to spare at least half of the zinnias, even - yesterday morning. Bizarre.

Perhaps this wouldn't be so irritating if I had fewer posts to set on the fence you can see in the background.

Watermelon spots.

Lewisburg.

I'm growing some watermelons, with some measure of success this year. Blacktail Mountain is a short-season variety - relatively - which gives me a little leeway at this latitude, especially in an often cool and wet summer.

Also cool: the ones I've grown have these occasional, fascinating patterns of spots and spirals.



I've no idea why, but they do make for an interesting sight. As near as I can tell, they're not indicative of a problem, since it doesn't match the symptoms of any watermelon diseases I know of. Plus, the fruits are mighty tasty. Perhaps I'll have more melons, more spots, and more of an idea next year.

Fungal frenemies.

Lewisburg.

Tomatoes!



So, they're actually long gone at this point. I noticed the late blight a little over two weeks ago, and this year's massive tomato plants - the Sun Gold vines were probably ten feet long - were done for. Torn out of the ground, stuffed into trash bags, left to rot. There's even been some evidence of it on the potatoes, but not too much, and I'm culling them as I find them.

Even so, this was a bumper year for both crops. My off the cuff guess is that I brought in around fifty pounds of potatoes, and far more tomatoes than that. Not counting those eaten fresh, we have twenty-seven quarts and seven pints canned, and three half-gallon and four quart jars (plus a few) dried. If that's not enough to enjoy until next season, then my problems aren't with tomato production.

But, you know, not all fungi are bad. Puffballs, for example, are a pleasant surprise:



I'm fairly certain that this is an example of either Calvatia craniformis, the skull-shaped puffball, or Calvatia cyathiformis. (Hard to say without a mature specimen.) Either way it's edible, though low on the flavor index. Granted, frying almost anything in butter helps. It's kind of like eating a savory marshmallow.

Actually, it's a lot like that. On its own, not so exciting.

But it grew in the backyard, and the whole thing weighed 280 grams - just under ten ounces. Not bad.

Wild blueberries.

Lewisburg.

Blueberries grow in our backyard. Enough that we've picked twenty-one quarts thus far this year, with more ripening as I write this, though production has started to slow. It's more than enough to keep us in blueberry pancakes, cobblers, and so on for the next year.

And yet, it was hard to resist the urge to go get more. Wild blueberries.



Last year, I'd gone hiking deep in the woods, and had come across tiny, wild blueberries. Fields of them, in among the mountain laurel and rocky terrain. There aren't many ripe ones to be found, but they're delicious for a nibble as you walk by. And this spring, in conversation with friends, the idea came up. So, it became an evening activity.

I say "activity" because, like most foraging trips, it's all a crapshoot. Even when you know a fine wild patch of something - from berries to mushrooms to whatever else seems worth the effort - you always run the risk of returning home with an empty basket. You might have estimated the wrong date for ripe fruit. The birds, bears, and others might have cleaned it out first. It might simply be a poor year.

That said, we made out reasonably well, if you consider that we went for a hike, enjoyed a picnic dinner, and came home with some blueberries. A pint and a half's worth. Enough for baked goods - scones and pancakes and turnovers - but not so many that they needed preserving. With luck, I might even convince a few seeds to sprout into new plants, which'll help cut down on the mowable lawn surface.¹

And feed the birds, too, no doubt.

* * * * *

¹I'm always on the prowl for this sort of thing.

Strawberry booze.

Lewisburg.

We've had many a strawberry this year. Last time I checked in, we'd picked sixty-two quarts out of the patch. The final count - as of two weeks ago - ran up to seventy-two. We could have picked more, but after traveling out of town for a few days, the appeal of picking through lots of overripe berries had faded. There were still a few to pluck for nibbling as we walked the dog past - much like our raspberry picking for this season - but at least we could consider it done.

Plus, we'd moved into blueberry season, and they're easier to pick.

With so many strawberries, we've managed to preserve them in just about every way that comes to mind, from drying to making jam and syrup to freezing. And infusing¹ into alcohol. Now we can enjoy the flavor of the fruit without the constant vigilance for spoiled berries.



On the left, with its brilliant ruby red, is the first² batch of strawberry liqueur. The other is a strawberry ratafia made with white wine, which is distinctly colored, but nowhere near to the degree that the liqueur is. Part of that is due to using a smaller quantity of berries for the amount of liquid, though I've no doubt other factors play into it. In both cases, the strained-out berries were pale pink, worse than any off-season California strawberry you've ever seen.

Both sets had also given up a fair bit of flavor to the liquid. The ones from the liqueur had also picked up a kick of booze. Nibble a bowl full of them, and you'll feel it.

The color is a good indicator of the strength of strawberry flavor, with the ratafia having a subtle but unmistakable strawberriness, and the liqueur being like liquid strawberry candy. Both are sweet, but the latter is very much so. Which, considering its alcohol content, isn't such a bad thing.

They're both easy to make, and I'm assuming that the ratio I've used for this will work well for other fruits, too. (It had better; I have blueberry and sour cherry versions pickling away as I write this.) So:

Ratafia
Take one bottle of wine - red, white, what have you - and put it in a quart jar with a quarter cup of vodka, a quarter cup of sugar, and a cup of something with flavor. Fruits are lovely, but so are herbs and vegetables, too. Don't underestimate the appeal of cucumber. Store in the refrigerator for three weeks. Strain, bottle, and drink before the flavor fades.

Liqueur
Per 100g of fruit, use 60g of sugar and 125mL of vodka. Place in a large glass jar, and store in a cool, dark place for four weeks. Turn and shake every so often to help the sugar dissolve. Strain and bottle. Pay particular attention to the changing color as the fruit's pigments dissolve into the alcohol.

Presumably other flavors - such as herbs - would make for lovely liqueurs. Unripe walnuts are a fine choice, too. Only time, experimentation, and excessive quantities of fresh foods will tell.

* * * * *

¹As opposed to fermenting directly. I suppose that, if I'd planned for it, I could have juiced a good portion of our berries to make a strawberry wine, but I have to draw a line someplace.

²The second is due for straining and bottling tomorrow. They're essentially the same recipe.

Multicolored peas.

Lewisburg.

This may sound silly, but I'm thrilled to grow unusually-colored vegetables.¹ Sometimes, especially in the case of normally-green vegetables, it makes harvesting ever so much easier. Snap beans striped with purple and yellow; blue-podded peas; yellow squash; because they're easier to see, I'm less likely to end up with oversized - and then often less than desirable - vegetables. There are some who like their zucchini bigger than a baseball bat, I guess, though I can't imagine why.

Picking a golden-podded pea or purple bean runs the risk of growing something that looks good, but is lacking in taste, or texture, or what have you. It happens, though I seem to have dodged the bullet this year. Golden peas? Genuinely excellent. Blue-podded peas are also good, enough that I'll grow them again. And as for those Sugar Snap peas?

They're delicious, but in an odd position. Syngenta's PVP has run out, and it seems that seed quality is in decline. The upside? Anyone can produce and sell the seed these days. The downside? For a while, at least, finding reliable seed's going to be tough. So... the 2010 catalogs may need some careful perusal. Perhaps 2010 is the year for experimenting with Cascadia, or Amish Snap, or something else.

Until then, however, I've got many, many fresh peas to enjoy. Fresh, multicolored peas:



Extra bonus: I can pick peas into just one bowl, without worry that I'll mix up those with edible pods and those without.

* * * * *

¹Fruits, too, like yellow or orange raspberries, but they're more difficult, expensive, and time-consuming to play around with.