Bells of the North Homestead

Between the rose hips we have in our freezer from a year past, the wild blueberries that were just gifted to us from a wonderful friend, and a bag of rhubarb that was gifted to us from yet another wonderful friend, we have a lot of fruit and vegetables to use up, especially before that birch sap goes into the freezer next month! For more on that click on my blog  Foraging from Nature; Birch Syrup So this weekend we intend on turning all these bags into the following: Rhubarb Ginger Jam and Blueberry Lime Jam. Please keep in mind, these are all recipes I get from online, they are not mine.  I have posted a link to the original website with each recipe. Also a side note, I didn't get to the rose hip jam even though I have a picture of it in the bag.  Obviously that will be a task for another weekend! Rhubarb Ginger Jam It will make about 3 lbs INGREDIENTS 2lbs trimmed rhubarb, chopped 2lbs sugar Juice of 2 small lemons 1.75 tbsp fresh ginger 3.5 oz crystall...

Cornus canadensis. Cornus canadensis  is a slow-growing  herbaceous  sub shrub  growing 10–20 cm tall, generally forming a carpet-like mat. The above-ground shoots rise from slender creeping rhizomes that are placed 2.5–7.5 cm deep in the soil, and form  clonal  colonies under trees. The vertically produced above-ground stems are slender and unbranched. The leaves are oppositely arranged on the stem, but are clustered with six leaves that often seem to be in a whorl because the internodes are compressed. The leafy green leaves are produced near the terminal node and consist of two types: 2 larger and 4 smaller leaves. The smaller leaves develop from the axillary buds of the larger leaves. The shiny dark green leaves have 2 to 3 mm long petioles and leaf blades that are obovate. The blades have entire margins and are 3.5 to 4.8 cm long and 1.5 to 2.5 cm wide, with 2 or 3 veins and cuneate shaped bases and abruptly acuminate apexes. ...

We have been blessed on our property with a large amount of silver birch trees so this Spring time we intend to use some of them. Some will be used in making birch beer for my husband, which I'll write about later, and some will go into making birch syrup.  In the coming years I might make birch wine as well for use in cooking but for now I've got more than enough other projects to work on and I really do not want to bite off more than I can chew. We've actually had birch syrup before but it is most definitely an acquired taste.  It is not quite as sweet, and it is much darker than maple syrup is. Making birch syrup is much more labor intensive then maple syrup is.  Maple syrup typically takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup.  Birch on the other hand takes 100 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of birch syrup. This means we will be cooking down our sap for quite a while. Our first step, will be within the next month, to walk our property to assess whic...

I feel like it's been forever since I've written and yet it was only earlier last week that I wrote!  So much has happened since the last time I wrote so, this is one of those moments when I take a huge sigh and try to figure out where to begin. In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland the King said to the White Rabbit "Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop". Good Advice. So first, our garden has stepped up production as of lately and we're eating from it non stop.  My parents recently visited and we made eggplant parmesan from eggplants out back which was thoroughly enjoyed by all.  We're easily getting medium to large sized bowlfuls of tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplants and squash every week now.  Coupled with the amount we get from our weekly CSA share at Brad's Produce , and well, it's a lot of food. The tomatoes have been turned into sauces, diced tomatoes, salsas, dried tomatoes, and fireballs....

This weekend I decided to bite the bullet and tear out our lovely, beautiful lone tomatillo plant.  If you remember right I posted earlier that I made the rookie mistake of only planting one tomatillo plant.  You know, the old saying, it takes two to tango? Well that applies here. Tomatillo plants are self infertile which means they need two plants to produce fruit.  Since I only planted one plant the tomatillo was going to do nothing else in my garden but draw bees (good thing), take up room (bad thing) and bring shade to my pepper plants (also bad thing).  So, it's gone.  In it's place I planted some Cumin seeds that I hope will come up soon.  Edward and I love cooking with Cumin so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  This will be a new spice for me to grow. I also have one other spice that I will be trying soon but a blog will be following shortly on that to cover that one. So onto the state of the garden.  First we had a...

I never thought this would possibly happen but I guess it has.  Recently due to a potluck at work I needed some tomatoes but I had none ready to pick in the backyard (wouldn't you know, the tomatoes were ready about 3 days later.  Goes to show you can't rush a good thing) So I bought some at the grocery store to help top a seven layer dip I made.  I ended up using only a portion of the store bought tomato because the thing tasted like water with a slight tomato taste. EWWWW!  The worms got the rest.  I'm sure they were probably put off by the lack of taste as well. I've gotten used to sweet, tangy, tart tomatoes.  Tomatoes that just TASTE like summer.  I couldn't stand the fact that I even used some of the grocery store tomatoes on my dip. Same goes for Cucumbers.  My cucumber vine is just about dead.  It has barely produced at all recently (not its fault, the whole placement thing which is our fault. The tomatoes are hogging all the ...