No More Jam

The parents of people now in their mid seventies were children during the Great Depression.  It is highly likely that they faced bedtime with empty bellies on many occasions.  That may be a factor in my history of large family gardens filled with food.  Becky and I have tended our own gardens across the past fifty years.  We no longer put up large quantities of frozen or canned food but we still make our own jam.

This is the end of our frozen stockpile.  No cook freezer jam filled the freezer and nearly carried us to the next harvest.  Some of the strawberries used in the jam were grown here.  Most were picked by us from a nearby roadside operation.  Most went from the plant to the freezer in just one day.  The balance were processed the next day.  Starting each day with jam made from locally grown fruit is a remarkable experience.

As the last of the jam jars were filled, we turned to freezing fresh berries.  These are seen as a special treat and we usually find some of last year's crop still holding freezer space when the new crop is ripe.  It is a real hardship to make the effort to clean out the freezer in a timely fashion.

The roadside market that has served our needs for more than fifty years is no more.  We have found another but felt the need to grow our own.  These plants are in their second year here and look ready to provide us with a bumper crop.  The original plants were set in two rows.  Runner plants were set in rows on either side of the parent plants.  There was supposed to be a one foot wide clear space down the middle.  More plants should have been removed.  The bed is five feet wide and the wire fence is easily removable.  Picking from either is within our extended reach.  The one hundred new plants here might just supply our needs.

These berries lag behind the forty-eight plants near the house.  The nearby maple trees shaded this part of the garden despite their lack of leaves.  Since the sun climbs higher each day this ground lies in full sun now.  Winter was just a little late to leave here and that could be seen as a plus.  In any event we will be picking fresh ripe strawberries here very soon.  We must remember to purchase needed supplies now before the store stock is depleted.

Wretched Weather Bonus

It should come as a surprise to no one that the recent weather here has been brutal.  The first photo, taken March 30th, shows the condition of the Cardinal Flower plants that grew from seed as the snow cover was disappearing.  All six clumps look a little tattered but ready to grow.  At this point we were optimistic about the likelihood of summer flowers.

Just two weeks later conditions had taken a sharp turn for the worse. Bitter cold returned in force and the plants looked almost totally dead.  Our decision was to move on to other parts of the garden where we could focus on more positive  outcomes.  This mess would be cleaned up later.

This is the condition of these plants today.  Six of these pictured plants can be matched with the mostly dead remains shown in the second photo.  Their recovery was totally unexpected and we will watch to see just how they grow this summer.  Basal rosettes may be the outcome with flowers an additional year away.  Flowering stems of a reduced size may also be what happens here.  In either case, we are positioned to see just how Cardinal Flower recovers from the damage done by our common extreme weather.  The larger plant in the lower right corner was one that we potted up.  It also was in damaged condition from the cold but it did miss many cold nights while housed inside in the basement.  Another potted plant is just out of the picture at the right end of the upper arc of plants.  The coming summer season could be highly instructive on the life cycle of Cardinal Flower in this general area where it remains rare in the wild.

We have also devoted years of effort helping Oriental Lilies survive spring weather here.  We built a sod house that could be covered with a tarp.  Nearly three dozen plants that had each been placed in a three gallon pot survived late hard frosts only to face occasional damage during the move from the pot to the ground.  Try to picture nearly three feet of plant being shaken from an inverted pot.  A second pair of hands removed the pot so that the plant could be righted in preparation for placement in a hole.  The holder had to be standing in order for there to be enough space for the lily to drop from the pot.  Then the holder had to kneel so that the dirt ball could be placed in the hole.  That move could not be completed today for any price.  Other lilies were covered in place with huge plastic garbage cans since any part of the bud that touched the covering can would be frozen.  This season's bitter cold kept the lilies deep underground for much longer than usual.  There has been no frost since they finally broke ground in May.  If these warm conditions continue for just a few more days, we will have many sweet smelling lily flowers in a variety of colors without any of them needing protection from bitter cold.