Raspberries: Garden to kitchen

It's so nice to have black raspberries again. Today I made a jar of raspberry jam just to see if I remembered how to do it. We tried it on toasted english muffins and smiled that something this easy works. All it takes is equal parts of sugar and berries over medium heat until it sheets from a spoon.

The next thing we'll be doing is just tossing about a cup of berries into a Pannekouken (dutch oven pancake) which is a sort of an egg rich batter in a round bottomed pan that you bake in the oven. We used to love them years ago in a local restaurant where the waitresses dressed like little dutch girls and ran them out to your table before they fell (the pancake, not the girl...OK, you can stop laughing now). It was very dramatic, not only because of the way it was served to you but also because they raise up light and fluffy over the edge of the pan and just drop flat as soon as they hit the cool air. making them at home promises to be much duller but just as yummy.

I've only heard back from one of the people that I offered berries to and as you can see there are an awful lot of berries out there so I'll be trying many more things before I give up and just start freezing them.

Latest Veggie Garden Photos

The few strawberries that I was able to save are doing well. About half of them are flowering and setting fruit. The secret to saving these was to put lots of little metal things around them to protect them from the squirrels who dug up and ate ALL of them in the big, brown tired planter.

I ended up planting peas in that tiered, brown planter because that's all I had left this year. 

As you can see I'm planting other things in place of the strawberries here. There just wasn't any money available to buy more this year.

Raspberry Days

Every morning we pick fresh raspberries and put them out for sale. Washed and ready to eat in  tiny dishes with silver plastic spoons for anyone passing by on the way to the lake.

There haven't been any takers so each day I think of something else to do with them. Yesterday I put them up in little containers for the freezer. Today I made a couple of jars of jam and had fresh berries on a waffle with whipped cream.

I may just take tomorrow off. Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.

Oh well, I made today fun and cooked the jam up in the yard instead of trying to cope with my tiny kitchen.

It's funny how people look the other way and just don't see you when you're in a wheelchair. It's like my superpower, I'm pretty much invisible here and can do whatever I want without anyone saying anything about it.

Transplanting, container garden

You can barely see this old raised planter box in the back yard. We've been transplanting all of the strawberries and chives that were in it and as soon as we get EVERYTHING out of it we'll be moving the box itself to the front garden where I can get at it with the wheelchair.
     Yes, we'll be raising it to a better height for working it with the chair too.
This one is made of recycled materials and any additions to it will be as well.

  This pot has a miniature sunflower at the center, peas planted to vine up around the cage and and lettuce around the outside edge.

The red tower has strawberries in it and is surrounded by a lot of other plants that I'll be sharing and moving around the garden. (hosta, chives, lily of the valley, nasturtiums, violets, and many other things)

Adding art to some of the pots makes it harder for animals to to dig things up and damage or remove plants. It looks great too and makes people smile.

I'll be putting these hosta in the ground along the sidewalk and just in front of the arbor.

This is the corner of my container garden and in this small area I've already got peas, lettuce, carrots, onions, sunflowers and strawberries planted in it.

The raspberries on the other side of the yard

Here are a couple photos of the best raspberry bushes in my old garden.

My yard and garden are so far out of  control that you can barely see the black planter box near the wood pile. Somewhere in that box were 25 strawberry plants. Some of them did well and I can't quite find the others. I'm planning to get in there and clean things up as soon as the weather cools down. I pick what strawberries I can early in the morning before the heat of the day sets in.

Wrestling the walker and lawn mower

Yes, it's hard work and your yard will get away from you at times but the exercise and fresh veggies will do you good. Don't give up!!

Be careful and take your time. As long as you've got somewhere nice to rest you'll be fine.

 I'm looking forward to putting in a free wheeling path between these boxes. I just haven't decided what kind of a surface we'll put in and then of course there's the issue of the expense so in the meantime I just keep mowing the grass and dreaming of better things ahead.

As I was mowing around my planters I decided that this raspberry bush is so nice and healthy that I should just move it to the new patch at the end of the garden.

I'd almost forgotten this old garden box but will clear it out and add it to the other 3 in the main garden.
The big challenge will be emptying it enough to get it moved. Wish me luck!

It looks a lot nicer with the grass cut, doesn't it?

Runaway Raspberries

Garden Photos, strawberries, raspberries and tulips

The strawberries I planted a few days ago are starting to green up and settle in.

 It won't be long before they're looking as nice as that one that was left over from last year.

Here are the strawberries that I planted yesterday. They don't look like much yet but should be nice next month.

 The raspberries are headed for the neighbors again. It's surprising how quick they run away if you don't watch them. When I traced it back to the spot it was growing from it was about ten feet long.

I need to head back out there with some pruners...or maybe a machete...

I'm waiting for these tulips to bloom so I can do a series of drawings or watercolors of them in case they don't survive the move when I dig this mess up and try once more to get these plants separated and transplanted to better locations.

Bird on the brush pile, trimmings from the raspberry patch and roses

I'm glad that we lice in a city that allows backyard campfires because this mess will disappear quickly when we get a chance to burn it.

The neighbors think we're a bit odd but we always cook dinner in the campfire when we're having one.  It makes things more fun and nothing goes to waste. The ashes get stirred into the gravel around the campfire area to keep the weeds down.

The first day of gardening with my walker

The first thing I noticed is that the walker needs better tires because it kept getting hung up in the tall grass. It was nice to be outdoors again and we put together a new planter box with a trellis from a kit. it went together pretty fast and easy and it was on sale so it was actually cheaper than buying cedar lumber and building it ourselves from scratch.

Filling it will be a different story, keeping the walker nearby as I fill the bottom of the planter box with brush and other stuff that needed to be cleaned out of the garden anyway. I alternate layers of plant debris and soil in the bottom of the planter box to help fill things us a bit before adding the good, new garden soil and my plants.

At the rate I'm moving it will take most of the week to finish this project but I am determined to get it done and would much rather do this than go to physical therapy.

I'm getting exercise either way and I'd rather grow strawberries than run up bills. Wouldn't you?

I also stopped to pull a few weeds and prune off some of the old raspberry canes, it felt great to be out in the garden again and I'm looking forward to the rest of the season. Aren't you?

Raspberries

 It's hard to describe the size of these bushes (3 of them planted in a 4 x 4 foot raised planter box 1 foot tall) unless you notice the size of the wood pile behind it)

 The bushes on this side of the yard weren't quite ripe yet so we decided to check the other side of the yard.

 We weren't even planning to grow any here!

Guess what I'm having for lunch...

Today's Garden Photos

 These chives and raspberries are in a big pot on the side of the backyard.

This lone white iris was in an abandoned part of the old back garden so I thought I'd bring it in to do some drawings with.

Kitchen Garden

 This small group of pots by my front door are all I've got started this year for fruits and vegetables so far.

 The part of this pot that appears to be empty so far is actually planted full of carrots, they're just not up to much yet.

 There are also carrots planted around these strawberries.

The radishes are doing well, when I thin the seedlings now I bring them in to add to my salad.

Plant Progress

 Here's a look at one of the roses

 This is the lilac you see in the border to the side of my green chair

 The hosta has made a good come back in that planter box we built on the side of the house last year.

This is part of the mess in the backyard but it's also my best producing raspberry bush so I'm attempting to prune it in such a way that it will send up more shoots that I can transplant to neater areas of the yard.