The Hippest way to spend the day

Rose hips, that is.

This year, our Rosa Rugosa bushes kicked out an incredible number of these gorgeous globs of reddish-orange happiness.

Apparently, all parts of all roses are edible (except, of course, those that have been chemically treated with pesticides and such), including these funny little gifts of fruit.

What's this have to do with the way to spend a day? Well, today is my first day of summer. It's the first day that I'm off of work, the sun is blazing, the garden is booming and I have the entire day to do whatever I please.

So while I sipped on my second cup of morning coffee, I made a do-list of sorts:

And at the top, as you can see, is "make rose hip jam" and tell y'all about it. So I set out to pick the lot of them and get started.

A thorn in my plans?

Every rose has it's thorn?

A thorn by any other name still makes you bleed?

Well, lookout, anyway, when you pick these pretty suckers. I got a little carried away once or twice when I saw a particularly pretty berry and now I have perforated fingers.

I picked a bunch:

They're so pretty!

Next step: process. Rose hips are funny little beings. They have these giant sepals that create a stiff crown at one end, and the other end is where the spikes begin. Both of these have to be removed before you can proceed.

Here are the rose hips floating in rinse water after I sliced off the crowns. 

 Next step: seeds. Not just a few seeds, either. Copious amounts of furry, nasty, inedible and irritating seeds. 

Many sources direct you to cut each rose hip open and manually scrape them all out. But that would literally take you all day for 8 cups of fruit.

For example, these seeds all came out of one fruit:

So I have better way.  Stick the suckers in a blender with a bunch of water (you'll have to do this in batches), blend on low for about 10 seconds or so to chop up the fruits (without chopping the seeds too much) and go check your e-mail.

I mean, do something for a minute or so while the mixture separates out because, viola, the seeds float!

At this stage, you can spoon them off the top. A nice tip is when you're struggling to get the last few seeds, fill the blender to the top with water and scrape them off the surface with your fingers.

I filled this bowl with seeds from all the rose hips:

You can bet that those did not go in my compost pile.

After all that blending and seperating and skimming, you're left with this:

Which you then pour into a pot with the water you used to blend and boil it up for a long time.

Ah! Added bonus. I was hot and inspired, or just perspired, and desired some sweet iced tea. Instead of reaching for the mint tea bags, I took some water from my mixture here, strained off the pulp, sweetened it and poured it over ice. 

So, so good.
Guaranteed to satisfy your thirst and vitamin C requirement for a month.

At some point in all the boiling (after about an hour, I'd say), I added a bunch of sugar and some lemon juice. While that was going, I sterilized my jars

After it got to the jamming stage (a little after this picture was taken) I scooped it into the jars, screwed the lids on tight and processed them in a hot water bath for about 15 minutes.

I didn't add any pectin or gelatin so we'll find out how well it gels, but it sure is pretty!

This process takes a while, so I took advantage of the downtime and baked a loaf of bread to enjoy when the jam cools down. The recipe for this no-knead bread is in my archives.

But I caution you against trying it unless you don't mind gaining 10 pounds in a month. :)

I'll report back when we crack open the first jar!

My garlic is so Money!

Remember these?

The other day, curiosity overcame my patience. I had to meet my underground friends that have lived in the front garden since, well, November!

So I dug and dug,

And pulled a little and . . .

It smelled so wonderful!

Hooray!

I dug up the rest (all 11) and now they're drying/curing in the kitchen. 

As a triumphant aside, I went to the Davis Square Farmers Market yesterday and had an experience that thrilled me to my toes. Usually, I walk the aisles of the market and feel a wee bit inadequate because my city-girl produce doesn't often match the pros' goods. Well, that has all changed with this garlic harvest! We blew them away. It would have taken 3 of their bulbs to match even one of ours! Finally, something came out of our ground that I can be really proud of. 

I mention this because on the same day I dug the garlic, I also pulled the a carrot and the beets.

Yah, don't get too excited. They're pretty tiny.

So I sliced them up, sauteed them in some EVOO tossed in the beet greens and served it over proscuitto brown rice and wild salmon garnished with fresh green snap peas.

And look who else came for dinner?

It's not the size that counts . . . (well, maybe it is)

We're talking carrots here, people. (But at least they're dirty carrots.)

Last year, as you can see by looking back at some of my old posts, my adventures in growing carrots proved me to be a miserable failure. None - NOT ONE - of my many dozens of carrots of the 4 different crops of carrots topped an inch in length. And the ones that managed to take carrot-ish form were eaten through by ants. 

Pitiful, right?

So this year,  I tried a new approach: plant carrots that are supposed to be short and stubby so I can claim victory no matter what. Meet the Danvers Carrot.

The other morning, I started the day in my favorite way - coffee, husband, garden tour with the sunrise.

(and no makeup)

We wandered over to the front gardens to see what we could see.

(That's Erik, seeing all that he can see.)

And Hark! I spotted something!

A mature carrot?!

So I tugged and tugged and came to an instant conclusion:

 - that I didn't have to tug very hard. Not a good sign.

But it was bigger than an inch and not an ant in sight. So that made me declare a 73% victory.

And then I ate it. It tasted like a carrot. The rest are still in the ground. I'm aiming for a 100% victory in one week. Set your watches!

The Garlic Scape Caper

I walked out to the garden the other day, and saw this:
That, I found after a bit of Googling, is a garlic scape. And not only can you eat it, you should eat it. Leaving it on the plant will eventually sap strength from the bulb - not good.

Which begged the question: how big were the bulbs under there?
I am not a patient person.

Just ask my husband. Ask anybody.
Ask, well, ask this garlic plant.It wasn't very big as you can see. I replanted it and apologized with lots of water and gentle patting. (It's still not dead several days later...)

Instead, I just harvested the scapes and prepared to make some uber-yummy pasta primavera.
Chopped 'em up:They taste -- now get this! -- garlicky! And a little salty. Very nice flavor.

Threw them in a saucepan with some other stuff:Added mushrooms, sundried tomatoes . . .. . . some garden-grown oregano:. . . some summer squash, red peppers . . .
. . . garden-grown arugula, some white wine, yummy cheese . . .. . . saved some garden-grown basil to sprinkle on top:
And then we ate it before I remembered to take a picture of the finished dish. Doh! Should only have my wine after the photographs are done. Trust me, though; it was a delish dish. Try it out with whatever you have on hand.

Here are some other pretty pictures from the garden last weekend:

Happy chard:
Happy Amish Sugar Snap Peas in spring rain:


And a wee bean trying to make it out of the dirt.
Cilantro that is moving on to the next phase of life:
Spinach that was hiding so I wouldn't eat it (had it for dinner last night).
And summer squash getting ready to start a riot.
That's the update!

Don't give up....

First, let me say, I've been Berry, Berry bad.

Just about 2 months have passed since the last post. We have a trellis. We have a trellis. Refresh button. We have a trellis. Still a trellis. 

So I ask you Chive me no more . . .

And Lettuce be friends . . .

. . . and put the Chard times behind us . . .

. . . and Peas

peas, 
PEAS! Forgive me for my inattention.

Believe me, it's bugged me too.

It's no excuse, but I've been Romaine around the globe pursing other adventures.

Specifically, I went to Kenya for a couple weeks to direct a documentary on people stretching.  (And I know that's not Romaine.)

Also, my work life has been tumultuous (New York Times want to shut us down? What?) to say the least, and my Papa had to get surgery (he's A-OK now).

In short, I've Bean busy.

The good news is that our gardens haven't suffered, only the garden of www.citylovescountry.com. And the garden of your curiosity about this patch of Medford, MA dirt. And the garden of my really bad puns hath become overgrown like the garlic,

 -- nay, it hath blossomed into this ridiculous apology post.

There is much to write about and show now that spring has spring with such force.  Consider this a preview postcard of things to come. I won't abandon you again. Until I do.

Feline any better?

We have a trellis!

Remember that trellis I told you we were going to build? Here it is (pre-paint):
Erik build me this grand structure on which to grow our cucumbers, beans, peas and squashes. And whatever else I think we can fit. Here 'tis after a coat of purple paint (on the outside of the box only, of course):I love its lines. I hoped it would be functional, but I didn't thing it would be pretty, too!
Here are some pictures from the square foot gardens, just because they're so happy. This is the garlic, which I think will be ready long before its scheduled harvest time in early summer:And here's some very green, lovely chard:
Now, when do I harvest it? Should I start now with the outside leaves? Will that encourage new growth? Advice?

Proof that coldframes rock!

Here's a wee video update about how much green things love little glass houses.