All of a sudden, our crops are starting to come in. We’ve already eaten a few ripe tomatoes and picked a bunch of Provider green beans to eat with supper and can up. I’ve got a whole lot more out there for me to pick tomorrow. They come on so fast and keep producing all summer long, until it freezes! They’re certainly well named.
I’ve also noticed our chokecherries are getting darker and are about ready to pick. This year, I’m making cherry/jalapeño jelly. I call mine Bronco Cherry and boy is it ever good. All I do is cut up a handful of jalapeños and boil them with the chokecherry syrup, then strain out the jalapenos and ladle the syrup into the jars. Yes, I do use pectin and the chokecherry jelly recipe.
We’ve also got a bunch of big Hansen’s bush cherries on our bushes along the fence. They look like ripe olives! Yum! The birds got last year’s batch before I could pick them. So, this afternoon, I’m going out and getting them. When they’re almost ripe, they’re puckering, like chokecherries. But when they’re very ripe, they’re sweet. They’re a very easy crop to start and grow. Plus, they don’t flower too early, as do the Nanking cherries, so they nearly always set a crop. The blossoms don’t get killed by a late frost.
Our Hopi Pale Grey vines are setting tons of squash. We were out there with a local photographer, doing a photo shoot for Baker Creek today and were amazed at how big some of those squash were already! I can only imagine how huge they’ll be, come October. Wow!
We had our first cucumbers last night. I peeled some Early Fortune cukes and sliced them. I made a sweet/sour brine of vinegar, water, and sugar, mixed to taste before putting it on the cucumbers. After refrigerating them for an hour or two, we ate them with our smoked pork chops and baked potatoes. Yum! I even ate the leftovers for breakfast. Yep, harvest time shines! — Jackie
