It's a Berry Good Time!

Haven't had time to write anything lately.  Late April and May is when every day is about garden work. At least that is the case when the weather permits us to be outside working.  It may also be the least satisfying  time in the garden.  It is all about tilling, preparing the soil with amendments, seeding, weeding and hoping for a bountiful crop in 2 to 3 months.  It is kind of an 'all work and no play' time.  The rest of the summer also requires tilling, weeding and seeding but that work is accompanied by a harvest.  Voila - the result of all that work!  As soon as veggies come out of the garden, our spirits rise along with the energy to keep going for the rest of the season. 

Thankfully, not all of our crops require the preparation that the veggies do.  We are fortunate to have apple, pear, cherry, peach and plum trees.  They do not require a lot of attention until harvest except for management of pests, diseases, and a winter pruning every other year or so.  We are having a perfect fruit year due to lots of winter moisture and no late freezes.  As a result, we discovered mulberry trees in some of our woods - a great find.  The mulberries are absolutely delectable;  the drawback is that the they are difficult to harvest in quantity and they grow on very large trees on our property.  The best way to enjoy them is perched in the front end loader  (for you city folk, that is an attachment to a tractor)  lifted up to the most loaded branches with time to just dine on the fruit.  I guess it may be nice to give the tractor driver a turn in the front end loader to get his share also. 

Our apple trees are loaded with young fruit as is our asian pear - my favorite.  However, Jerry's favorite is our sour cherry tree.  It is loaded also and the fruit is turning bright red in multitudes.  He is leaving town for a couple of days and is concerned that when it turns, the birds will wipe the tree clean in a day as has happened in recent years.  Today, he picked a gallon and a half of these little tiny sour cherries, pitted every one of them, and we have spent the last couple of hours making them palatable  - that is, cooking and canning cherry jam.  Can you tell that this is not my favorite? 

The weather has been very hot - near 90 degrees and we have three stove burners going full bore to cook the cherries, sanitize the canning jars, and create Jerry's ultimate favorite flavor of jam.  We now have three pints and 8 half pints of canned jam sitting on the granite island with their lids popping happily to let us know that all of the work paid off.      It's a Berry Good Time!