Winter Wonderland

As my flower gardens sleep under a blanket of snow, I find myself thinking of, longing for spring.

While it is at least three months before I expect to see new life in my flower beds and four and a half months before I can think about planting seeds in my vegetable garden, I am already thinking, planning, researching.

I have my Vesey's seed catalogue, with pages and items already marked for when I make my order.  I've looked back over what varieties I ordered last year to determine which faired best in my soil and location.

Tonight, we will eat the last of the garden carrots and potatoes from 2010, making me long for spring planting even more.  I have been thinking about what new items I can add to my garden this year.

I am planning which perennials will need to be divided.  What new ones I would like to find to fill in spaces.  Even thinking about the possibility of a new flower garden along the front of the house.

I've been thinking about my shade garden.  I am determined to get it done this year.  I've been putting it off for too many years.

As many of you are enjoying skiing, snowboard and snowmobiling in this snow, I dream of spring when the snow will melt and my crocuses, freshly planted this past fall, will grow and bloom, signalling the beginning of my gardening year.  

Icicle Pickles

As the cucumbers continued to thrive in my garden through August, I continued to build on my pickle making resume, trying, again for the first time, Icicle Pickles.  These pickles always have and probably always will remind me of my Grandma.  Mom never really made Icicle Pickles, but Grandma always did  (and still does, despite the fact that she is starting to have memory issues).  Every time there was a family dinner of any kind at Papa and Grandma's house, you could count on their being a big dish of Icicle Pickles on the table.

I hadn't really thought about making Icicle Pickles because I didn't really know anything about the process, except that they took days, possibly even weeks to make.  And the only reason I knew this much was because I remembered Grandma sending us to the basement day after day with a big wooden spoon to stir the icicle pickles in the crock.  So, I hadn't even entertained the thought of icicle pickles because I like things with immediate results and I didn't have a crock to make them in.  Then one day, my friend, Renelle, mentioned on Facebook that she'd spent the afternoon bottling Icicle Pickles with her mom and I suddenly had an urge to make some.  After a few comments back and forth on Facebook, I had her mother's recipe in my inbox and had found out that my mother-in-law had a crock that I could use!

On August 31st, I started my first ever batch of Icicle Pickles.  And yesterday, September 13th, I bottled them.  Yes, folks, it take 14 days to make a batch of these pickles!  Check your calendar before you start and make sure you have the time to commit to this process!  And if you have never had Icicle Pickles, don't let the 14 days scare you away.  They are a lovely sweet, pickle, well worth the time and effort they require!

24 cups of cucumbers, cut with seeds removed - Day 1

Cucumbers after 14 days of "pickling" . . . ready to be bottled.

Finished Product

As will most of my recent forays in domesticity, I modified the recipe to suit my needs, mostly because my crock wasn't big enough to hold as many cucumbers as the recipe called for.  Here is my modified version, with the original amounts in brackets.

Icicle Pickles

24 cups cucumber, cut with seeds removed (2 gallons - 32 cups)

2 cups coarse salt

1 tbsp alum

Syrup:

5 cups vinegar (2 quarts - 8 cups)

8 cups sugar (14 cups)

4 tbsp pickling spice

Instructions:

Day 1:  Cut cucumbers, remove seeds.  Place in crock, cover with 2 cups coarse salt.  Add boiling water to cover cucumbers.  Cover crock.

Day 2: Stir.

Day 3: Stir.

Day 4: Stir.

Day 5: Stir.

Day 6: Stir.

Day 7: Stir.

Day 8: Drain liquid off.  Cover with fresh boiling water for 24 hours.

Day 9: Drain liquid off.  Add 1 tsp alum.  Cover with fresh boiling water for 24 hours.

Day 10:  Mix syrup and bring to a boil.  Drain pickles and cover with boiling syruup.

Day 11: Drain syrup off, into a pot, boil and pour back over pickles.

Day 12: Drain syrup off, into a pot, boil and pour back over pickles.

Day 13: Drain syrup off, into a pot, boil and pour back over pickles.

Day 14: Drain syrup off, into a pot, boil.  Put pickles into jars and fill with boiling syrup.  Close bottles and can for 15 minutes.

Thanks to Mrs. Oulette for her recipe!

Week 23 - Sept 4/5 & Week 24 - Sept 10/11 - Flower Gardens

The flower beds haven't changed since my last post.  With being on holidays at the beginning of September and going to my brother's wedding this past weekend, they have been pretty well neglected!  I really need to start to get some fall cleaning done in them soon.  And I am hoping to get some more fall bulbs planted this year.  One can never have enough tulips, daffodils and crocuses first thing in the spring!

There are a few things still giving me a little bit of colour, but I really don't have much this time of year.  I would love to have some fall mums, but I have never had any luck with them surviving winter.  Maybe I'll get one and try again!

Back Garden . . .

Side Garden . . . 

Side Garden . . .

Malva Zebrina is still going, which is really strange because it was much earlier than this last year!

Purple Leafed Sedum

Bumble bee having a Sedum snack.

Green Leafed Sedum

Burgundy Galardia . . . I can't believe how well this is doing and how long it has been blooming for a newly planted perennial!  Although it still needs to be moved because it is too tall for the spot it's in!

Week 23 - Sept 4/5 & Week 24 - Sept 11/12 -Vegetable Garden

Nothing much to say again . . . everything is slowly dying back as we slowly make our way into fall.

 I still have to dig the potatoes and there are quite a few ripe tomatoes that need to be picked.  

I am hoping to get enough tomatoes to make at least one batch of salsa this week or on the weekend.  And maybe get some into the freezer, but it wasn't the best year for them.  Maybe next year will be better.

Lettuce has all gone to seed, so it will probably just get used up as bunny food.  I have decided not to bother with romaine lettuce again next year, the red romaine didn't form heads at all, it was just the same as the red leaf lettuce that I planted and the green started to form heads and then suddenly shot up really tall and went to seed before it was big enough to use. 

Vegetable Garden . . . slowly shifting into fall mode!

Tomatoes . . . 

Lettuce . . . gone to seed.

The Herb Garden

The Herb Garden has gone a little wild and crazy too!  But that's OK, I'll just trim everything back before winter and it will all start off nice and small again next year.   I didn't get any scarlet runners this year.  Next year, I will have to find a new location or just not bother with them.  

Also, I think that it is time to rip everything out of the thing and start over with new soil.  When I started this garden, I covered the bottom of it with plastic and put it down on top of grass.  It has been a few years and there is some grass coming up through the plastic and although not a lot of it actually comes up through the top of the soil as grass, almost the entire thing is a mess of little tiny roots growing through the soil.  So, in the spring, I would like to dig all the perennial herbs and get rid of all the soil that is currently in it and fill it back up with manure from my grandfather's farm.  But we'll see what happens in the spring!

Week 22 - August 28/29 - Flower Beds

My flower beds are looking sad with autumn coming.  And with a bit of neglect, they are in desperate need of some TLC, lots of grass and weeds to pull and lots of things to be trimmed before fall really comes.  But there seriously just aren't enough hours in the day or even in the week these days.  And considering that I am away on vacation for the rest of the week, I don't expect any of it will get done before the next update.  But you never know, maybe the garden cleaning fairy will stop by while I am away and have them in tip top shape when I came home!

Back Garden

Side Garden

Side Garden

Malva Zebrina

Purple leafed sedum

Purple leafed sedum

Busy bumble on the sedum

Sedum

Hen and chick with lots of little babies