Home-canned Baby Food

Better late than never.

The best time of year to make baby food is late summer or early fall.  Peaches, followed by apples and pears, reach their peak at this time, and these flavours are always well received.  If you are new to canning, then making baby food is a good way to learn the basics.  [...]

Polytunnel Panic

I was worried that my beautiful greens might take a wee bit of a hit tonight (-2 predicted), so we rigged a temporary mini hoophouse over the garden bed.  It was a very last minute decision – made at about 4pm – and I think we did well.

We happened to have several yards of 3/4 [...]

A Tickle Trunk for Everyone

Growing up, my family always had a Tickle Trunk. It was a big black old-fashioned thing with metal hinges and clasps – both my cousin and I could fit inside it. It had some really interesting costume pieces in it: old wedding veils, a couple of wigs, old shirts, ties, skirts, high heeled shoes, scarfs, [...]

Salsa Verde!

I have 6 jars of green tomato salsa in the canner. I’ve never preserved green tomatoes before. Usually, at the end of the season, I cut down all the remaining clusters of tomatoes, leaving as much vine attached as possible, and spread them in a single layer between newspapers in the cold cellar. [...]

No Sun No Fun

I don’t ever remember October being this dark and wet. Unpredictable, yes, but never consistently dreary and damp.

The annual golf tournament at the cottage is held on Thanksgiving weekend. It’s always a roll of the die as to what the weather will be like. We’ve had Indian Summer and we’ve had blistering [...]

Rainbow

Tonight we witnessed a beautiful double rainbow and a starling party.

Pepper Pride

Another frost warning tonight. This time, with help from family, the plants were covered while it was still daylight. It may be the first of October, so frost protection is a little silly, but my peppers need more time and I intend to give it to them.

I planted them when they were little [...]

Sunshowers on a Cloudy Day

It was a strange day of intermittent sunshowers. Capricious weather. Mercurial. Jeckyll-and-Hyde. The clouds would part, the sun would burst through, then the rain would come. It’s a lovely time to be outside, actually. The sunlight flashes off the dripping plants and leaves you too dazzled to do any [...]

Frost

It’s the same story every year: I’m happily going about my daily harvest – bringing in the beets, the potatoes, the tomatoes, the peppers – and enjoying the warm days and cool nights that September brings, when suddenly Environment Canada issues a Frost Warning. I’m usually wrapping up my evening with a soothing [...]

Zunuksuk

I also have a love/hate relationship with recipes that promise to “put a dent in that zucchini harvest”.