Apple Butter and Cucumber Relish

Yesterday my friend J came over to be my kitchen slave learn about canning.

Since I had a plethora of apples, we made a batch of apple butter. Never having made it, I wanted to start right away on it because I kept hearing about how long it takes to cook down. I don't know why, but by the time the apples were mushy, the sauce was so thick, I was afraid to cook it down any more. I'm not sure if these apples were loaded in pectin, or if they were not really juicy, or what. Anyway, it didn't take forever, rather about 20 minutes, and before I knew it, we had incredible, trying not to lick up the spills with my tongue in front of J, apple butter.

I had always suspected that canning was easier with two, and it was. We had quite the dance going with me filling the jars and getting the headspace right, and J getting out the bubbles, wiping the rims, putting on the lids, and then back to me to put the jar in the canner. Of course all the prep went faster, too. J peeled all the apples while I quartered and cored them, and dumped them into the pot.



While the apple butter was bubbling away, J and I started on relish with the four pounds of too-big-for-pickles cukes from the garden. Of course dopey me didn't read that the relish had to sit in salt for four hours. But J was here for all the hard work, which is paring the cukes, and chopping everything up. Note the perfectly uniform pieces of cucumber (J's work) and the sloppily chopped red and green peppers (courtesy of moi). I wound up canning the lot at 8pm, and my wonderful hubby did up all the dishes (thanks, honey)!

So now I need to get the jars of relish to J, although there's really no rush on them since they should probably "pickle" for about a month anyway. If the tastes I had yesterday were any indication, it should turn out great, too. Big thanks to J for coming over and slaving away on a Sunday afternoon!

Apple Time

My harvest total has rocketed past the 100 lb mark with the digging of the rest of my potatoes, and the oncoming rush of apples. I figure the rodents have stolen/ruined over 10 lbs of spuds, dratted beasties.

To answer sinfonian's question, I have four semi-dwarf apple trees, planted back in 2002. The first to ripen are the Akane apples (shown in the basket), usually in late August for me. The tree is small, and so are the fruit, ranging from 3-4 oz each. They are sweet-tart and juicy. This year I had about 15 lbs from the tree. They're really disease-resistant - no scab to speak of, and the apple maggots, for whatever reason, leave them alone.

Which is not the case with the second tree to ripen, Alkemene (the green apples on the counter). It's a much larger tree, with larger, 4-6oz, very tart fruit, about a week behind Akane. Prolific and scab-resistant, The maggots just love these apples. I'm expecting about 30+lbs from this tree, almost all of which will be made into pies, applesauce, etc.

The third tree to ripen is Dayton, in late September. This has huge apples, some around 12oz. Again, the maggots don't seem to care for them much, and they're scab-resistant. The tree is shorter, wider and less prolific than Alkemene. I'm expecting around 20-25 lbs from this tree.

The last tree to ripen, in early October, is a keeper variety, Melrose. It's the largest tree of the lot, and, unfortunately, the only one not scab resistant. And the scab affects the storage qualities of the apple, so this one will probably end up applesauce or dried. I'll probably have another 25 lbs from this tree.

This is my first year of "big" harvests, and according to various sources, in time I should be getting somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 pounds of fruit per tree, give or take depending on the size of the tree.

Thanks for the question, sinfonian!

August Harvest Totals

Another month has come to a close. The late spring and cool summer have certainly affected the garden. At this time last year, I had taken almost 20 pounds of apples from the trees, and at least 3 lbs of tomatoes. This year, nada on both counts. Last year, I had all of my potatoes in. This year I still have another 10+ pounds in the ground. And, due to the busy-ness of the summer, I still haven't gotten my softneck garlic braided and weighed.

Yet, I am still surpassing last year's harvest. Year to date for 2007 - 78.5 lbs. Year to date for 2008 - 87.6 lbs, an overall increase of 11%, but a 30% decrease for the month over last year. Not great, but hopefully the weather will warm so I get some tomatoes, and the apple deluge is about to hit, and it's looking like it's a doozy.