Jamming

Being a state that consists of long winters we tend to live and love summer as if it will never come again. In other words, we give new meaning to busy. We've found it difficult to maintain our garden and get all the food processed at it's peak ripeness. That forced us to rethink a few things.

Last year the hot dry spring didn't bode well for the spring perennial gardens. The rhubarb bolted to seed heads fast and the asparagus became woody and began to fern quicker than usual. I think I managed a single, maybe two, batches of rhubarb jam and a couple servings of asparagus.

The hot weather loving, summer veggies did much better but our month long traveling vacation left much of the vegetables to rot in the gardens. It also meant many of our CSA shares went to others since we were not home to pick them up.

Having learned from last years schedule we opted to keep the gardens simple. We decided that the farmers market would have to replace the CSA, we would create a second perennial garden of strawberries, and would grow only a few versatile things in the large garden; zucchini, pickling cucumbers (something new I want to try) and tomato were the plants of choice. 

So far so good.

In spite of our schedule, I've managed to get everything processed efficiently. Although at times I has not been easy but I've managed to adapt and not waste anything. My shelves are again filled with Jam and I've had plenty to gift those beloved friends and family who look forward to their yearly treat of home made goodies.  Asparagus wasn't as fruitful as I'd hoped but it too was good. Strawberries are growing and ripening well. If I could keep the chipmunks out of the patch we'd be enormously successful. So far netting and fencing has not kept them at bay so I'm researching other ways of persuading them to leave that garden alone (companion planting perhaps).

The one thing I know for sure is that you have to be flexible when it comes to gardening. It takes time to find out what works and what doesn't. Like life it's always evolving, constantly changing and challenging but always worth it.