late august harvests

 these days i'm mostly getting lots of tomatoes, squash, some peppers, eggplants, and ground cherries.

 the long red peppers are choriceros, a basque heirloom pepper brought here and grown for the last 50 years by a gentleman i met at a seed swap a couple years ago. the purple/green peppers are black hungarian, the eggplants are fairy tale and shoya long, and the squash are ronde de nice and yellow straightneck.

 the yellow-ish green tomatoes on the far right are lime green salad--when you cut them open they're brilliant emerald green inside. also pictured are ground cherries (in the dish), and an assortment of tomatoes: white currants, cream sausage, lemon drop, chocolate cherry, brown berry, gartenperle, tiny tim, and a mystery tomato i grew from OSU blue seed i saved last year. the mystery appears to be an accidental cross with a larger, striped tomato (in this picture they just look like generic medium-size red tomatoes, but the ones ripening now have some blue in them, and more pronounced stripes.) thankfully i planted one pure OSU blue plant from the original seed.

 casper eggplant, tomatoes and squash, including a couple "peter pan" squashes. i planted these extremely late so they're just now starting to pump out the fruit. when you let them age off the plant for a few days the coloring turns really cool, kinda green/yellow tie-dye.

 my first two japanese black trifele tomatoes (top right) and zapotec pleated tomatoes (bottom). i tried to grow both of these last year but they died as seedlings before transplant. the zapotec pleated at front/right weighs 3/4lb.

 snow white cherry tomato, with an outie belly button!

 mixed basil pot, with (clockwise from bottom right) opal, sweet, thai and dwarf greek basil. i discovered last year (or maybe the year before? i can't remember) that basil does really well planted in a container, planted late in the season, and grown in partial shade. some of that goes against traditional growing practices for basil, but that's what has worked by far the best for me here in boise.

 this is red and green holy basil, a.k.a. krishna tulsi, grown in a separate container. the stems turned a beautiful deep purple.

 the dozen-or-so volunteer tomatillo plants took over a huge portion of the garden bed. they're all loaded with fruit, but nothing ripe yet.

 nikki and i went blackberry picking yesterday. the berries were super sour, nothing like the ones i picked a couple weeks ago. luckily i picked just the right amount for a pie. it still turned out nice and tart, but not as unbearably mouth-puckering as the raw berries.

 the calendula in my front bed is in full bloom, and the bees are loving it.

spring (freezer) cleaning: elderberries and blackberries

it was time to do something with a couple of the bags of foraged berries that’ve been taking up space in the freezer for months. first, elderberries.

four pounds of them. i made a large batch of fabulous elderberry syrup, much different from the batch i made before. this time i didn’t bother with the food mill at all--i just drained and pressed the berries in a fine mesh strainer. this way the syrup doesn’t have tiny bits of berry guts. i also added more seasonings: lots of powdered cinnamon and steeped cloves.

i read in a preserving book that when you can syrup it should be pretty runny, not as thick as a typical commercial syrup, so i didn’t cook this batch as long and i think the viscosity is just right. if you want a thicker syrup then once the jar is open you can add cornstarch or arrowroot powder (mix the powder in a bit of cold water, boil the syrup and add the mixture a little at a time until it reaches the right thickness.) adding a thickening agent before canning is not recommended.

the four pounds of berries yielded three pints of delicious syrup, plus about a cup extra for the fridge.

i made vegan tapioca pudding just so i could mix in some syrup. the combination tastes reminiscent of pumpkin pie filling.

while making the syrup i reserved about two cups of liquid (before adding sugar or seasonings) to try dying a piece of muslin. i’m not a fan of the resulting color, but it was a fun experiment. i’d definitely like to play around more with vegetable dyes. here’s a good resource that shows a chart of different botanical substances you can use to make different colors. here’s another one. i’m going to see if i can check out some library books on the topic. i’d love to naturally dye my own fabrics and yarns.

i had about two pounds of frozen blackberries left, half of which went into the dehydrator to make this tasty raw fruit leather. the other half became part of an abomination. first it was a fruit-sugar slurry, then i thought it would be a good idea to try to make it into a cake. a smoothie muffin cake. i didn’t measure anything or follow a recipe. it’s ugly, and i wish i could say it tastes either delicious or disgusting, but it’s just kinda so-so. i didn’t use enough sugar or salt so it’s a little bland, but surprisingly it baked through properly and the texture is fine.