Tonight we finished canning 19 quarts of Norlands.  The apples are the size of a very small Red Delicious, or smaller, just big enough to quarter and core.  The other two apple trees, Rescue and Dolgo, have fruit too small to bother with coring, so I'll just make applesauce from them. 

The Evans (Bali) cherries continue to ripen, so I pick a few each day.  They are tart enough that some people won't eat them plain, but I like them as they are.

It looks like freezing will hold off for awhile.  I have some zuchinnis forming, finally!  Hurry, hurry, hurry.  The sugar snap peas are about done, possibly from drought.  I haven't been good about watering.  I'm lazy, plus I don't want to encourage the slugs.

The Olympiad rose has sent up two more blooms.  Three blooms this year!   Last year (it's first) only one.  No frangrance but such perfection in a deep red many-petaled bloom.  

The President clematis is blooming as well.  The blue bloom is as big as my hand.  I really hope it overwinters.  I bought it in Seattle this spring as a tiny start.

Posted by gail_heineman at 7:42 PM YDT

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The Norland apples are beginning to ripen.  They never get entirely red, so it's easy to wait too long.  The ones we've picked, although blushed, were still a mite green-tasting.

The Rescue apples are not far behind.  The Dolgo crabapples are all still green.

The Evans (Bali) cherries have been ripening, and we pick and eat them immediately when they turn red.  There's not enough to preserve.  We'll probably get a quart in total from the two trees, a 12-foot and an 8-foot.  But they're only a few years old.

Some Red Sun sunflower blooms, the white flowers from my Galego Greens (grown from seed we bought in Spain in 2000 and hope to produce seeds) and the laden branches of the Norland are juxtaposed in a riotous profusion of end-of-season fertility.  It's both gratifying to see such abundance and energy, but a bit sad to know it will be over soon. 

Posted by gail_heineman at 12:53 PM YDT

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The saskatoons (aka serviceberries) at the south end of the lot are over 10 feet high, and have lots of berries, especially on the uppermost branches.  The 10 foot highway fence just 20 feet south of them probably influences that.  Luckily I can bend down the branches to get the berries, and then they just pop back up.  The two small bushes I planted last year near the front door are bearing as well, although I don't think the berries are quite as sweet. 

The domestic currants in the backyard have no yield this year.  There's a fly larvae that eats the leaves, and I chose not to use rotenone this year.  I'm trying to think of the bare branches as sculpture rather than a lost crop. 

The red raspberries have a fungus problem, some sort of light blue stuff that floats in the breeze in little bits when I touch the stems.  I tried pulling out the infected bits but it's so widespread I'm calling it a total loss.  There is very little are circulation where they are, in the easement at the base of the 10' highway fence, and there was a day of heavy rain followed by record high temperatures, perfect for fungus.  I have hopes the golden raspberries along the west property line may yet yield.  They're just starting to ripen.

The wild currants in the front yard bore well and I picked them yesterday morning.  We had a mama and calf moose two nights ago in the front yard, but they were only interested in willow leaves, luckily.   

Posted by gail_heineman at 10:30 AM YDT

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This afternoon it was raining gently, perfect weather for turning my week-old compost pile.  The cottonwood fluff my husband raked had held moisture well, and was turning black the fastest, but the green component (weeds and grass I pulled) was warm and changing too.  I don't know why using the pitchfork to lift the material and rearrange it in a new pile was so satisfying, as the rain fell on the birch leaves above me with little patters and an occasional drip onto my raincoat.  I never know whether turning the pile will speed it up or slow it down for me.  But even if it seems to stop, I know by next year it'll be ready to use to enrich and renew my gardens. 

If I was good I'd clean out the extra raspberries growing wild, and the horsetails and grass growing uninvited where I want a neat path along the staked raspberry plants, and make another pile.  But the warm house is calling me.  It's so cozy on a rainy day.  If I hadn't come out to work on the compost I wouldn't have remembered how nice it is to be able to be inside and relax on a rainy day.

Posted by gail_heineman at 10:09 PM YDT

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