We have been blessed this summer with an ample supply of tomatoes. Our freezer is full of tomato sauce, puree, marinara sauce, and slow roasted tomatoes. I’ve also dried lots of these red jewels and Dave’s made ketchup. So I thought I’d try making leather again. I made some several years ago but it didn’t…
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Drying & Using Tomatoes
Over the past five years here at Happy Acres we’ve found that Juliets are one of our favorite tomatoes to dry. They are good fresh (Dave made some killer salsa the other day with them), but drying really brings out the flavor. So last week I harvested almost 10 pounds from our four plants. This…
Read MorePutting Up
It’s been busy around here. From harvesting to watering to putting up. But before I tell you about putting up, I wanted to share something that made my day recently. With all of the time I spend outside I’ve been on the lookout for some long pants for gardening. They needed to be white and…
Read More2012 iris count
It’s been so much fun again seeing our irises bloom. Every day I check to see if a new one has opened. This one bloomed 4/30/10 and this year it bloomed April 16. Even though this one is a lovely iris, when they first started blooming here when we moved in, there were so many…
Read MoreWaldorf Salad
We took some time off yesterday and went to Engelbrecht Orchards to pick apples. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera. It was fun walking through the orchard picking the fresh apples. You pay for a 10 lb bag and then fill it up. So we filled up two! We’ll be making applesauce for the…
Read MoreA Surprise and More
Yesterday I took a walk around Happy Acres with my camera. Spotting these surprises made my day. I usually don’t spot these until they are all blooming. Been drying a lot of tomatoes. I’ve got a whole countertop full to work on this morning. I snapped a couple shots before they went in to the…
Read MoreHarvesting Heaven
The harvest here this year has been unbelievable. Now, the cherries and blueberries didn’t do real well, but the other fruits and veggies are coming on strong. Because of that, we’ve decided to break down and get another freezer. This one is a chest freezer that will be dedicated to meat and fish. Right now,…
Read MoreCherry Cherry
Asparagus harvesting is over (we got 20 pounds from our little patch!) and now it’s on to one of my favorites – cherries. Much to our surprise, when we moved in that our property had a cherry tree. We added three more, one of which has since died. This year is the first year that…
Read MoreBlackberry Fruit Leather
Last year I tried my best to use up our blackberries. We froze a lot of them and put them in smoothies. I also made jello, syrup (which I’ve already made two batches this spring from last year’s harvest), popsicles, and cobbler. But leather – no. I made apple leather – do that every year…
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