Spiced Crab Apple Jelly Recipe

 

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. It's harvest season. The berries, the mushrooms, all those other things wild and cultivated that my family picks and creates the jams, sauces, syrups and jellies we use through out the year and give to our friends. Also, I'm going to do something weird and give you the recipe before the back story.

This is actually a TECHNIQUE and a recipe both. The technique is for easily juicing the crab apples. 

Juicing the crab apples in an Instant Pot

This method will not be as clear as traditional juicing methods, more of a "cider" than a juice.

You will need: 

• 10 lbs of crab apples- ornamental are fine, we used ornamental for this batch
• water to cover
• strainer
• Instant Pot or other electric pressure cooker

We have a Ninja pressure cooker that's large enough we did this in 2 batches, which wound up being 2 cups of water per batch to cover the apples. 

Prep apples by removing stems. For larger crab apples, you can cut them in half too. Seeds and skins will be discarded with the pulp, but can add natural pectin to the finished jelly. 

Bring up to pressure and cook for 8 minutes. Natural release. Using a bowl to catch the juice, strain out the solids. A mesh strainer will work, you can line it with cheese cloth if you want a clearer finished jelly. We just strained and smooshed it through. The pulp and the discarded stems all went into our compost heap. 

Juice can be frozen to keep to process into jelly later. Also if you really, really like sour, go ahead and try it. It is sour though. 

Jelly Recipe (makes 12 half pints with a little leftover)

You will need:

• 9 cups of juice. Measure out your juice, add water to make 9 cups if necessary
• 1/4 cup of lemon juice
• 11 cups of sugar
• pinch each allspice, cinnamon and either mace or nutmeg (we used mace, I'm very fond of that vintage spice) 
• 2 packages of pectin- we used powdered Sure-Jell

Mix crab apple juice, lemon juice, and sugar in a large heavy bottomed pan. Add in spices. Stir, heat slowly to mix completely and dissolve sugar completely. Stir in 2 packages of pectin. Bring to a rolling boil (a boil that can't be stirred down) and boil for exactly 1 minute. 

Skim of foam and put into prepared jars with a half inch headroom. Water bath process for 10 minutes.  

Crab apples are pretty new in our harvesting. Last year at a virtual plant symposium, someone told me approximately where her Dad had planted crab apple trees decades ago. My daughter went out exploring and found them and also found out that other people weren't picking them. Over the course of the next few weeks, she and her brother picked about 30 lbs of them. They were dried, used in pie, used for jellies and apple butter. 

Those trees aren't ready yet. But a friend of our offered to let TG and William pick at her house and they got 16 lbs total! We gave some to a friend, and used the rest to make this jelly. 

It's delicious. This would be amazing with moose, caribou, or if you're down south, venison. It's also a natural for pork. The sweet, tart, spiced combination is a natural with sharp cheese too. 

Stick Figure Saturday- Planting seeds

 

It's Stick Figure Saturday again!!! That day where I post a simple stick figure coloring page with lots of room to play with shading and different techniques. 

Since I've been getting seeds started for my garden, I thought that would be fun. I hope you enjoy it. Click the images below for larger versions to save/print/color. 

Small jpg version stick figure planting seeds-

Large transparent png version stick figure planting seeds-

Self-watering planters with ramen cups

 This is not a sponsored post. I'm just really happy this worked just right. 

My son loves ramen and loves trying new flavors. One of his new favorite brands is Kusari Noodles. You can find them at Walmart or Amazon. This technique will work for other plastic cups too. These were what I had. 

They are really savory and flavorful when mixed right. Follow the instructions on the package exactly and make sure it's stirred well- the good stuff is at the bottom. 

The packaging is also designed to be recycle friendly, but given a choice between recycling and reusing, I reuse stuff until I've decided it's ready to recycle, and the shape of these cups struck me as being perfect for self-watering planters to grow herbs, so he's been saving the cups for me. The plastic is fairly firm and the labels have a perforated tab so you can pull it right off very easily leaving a plain white cup. 

Our weather has been really weird, but I found some of my Italian parsley still alive in my garden a couple days ago and cut a few stems to root and grow inside. I've used auto-watering planters to grow from seed too. 

You will need: 

• Cups
• an awl or sharp pair of scissors to make a hole
• cotton fabric to make a wick
• soil
• water
• Something to pull the strips through the cups

The cups need to be able to fit together in a way that provides space between the bottoms of the cups. For these, that flange at the bottom of the cups works. For cotton fabric, I've used old towels, the sleeves off t-shirts I've cut up for other projects, fabric selvages and cotton scraps from other sewing projects. You will want to use something that's been washed without fabric softener in the wash or dry cycle to remove sizing. 

You need twice as many cups as you want planters too. 

Cut the fabric into 1 inch strips if you're using a woven cotton or jersey, and 1/2 inch strips for thicker fabric- at least 6 inches long. 

Poke holes in the bottom of half of the cups. 

Now tie knots about 1-2 inches down the strips of fabric. 

You'll need to pull the strips through the cups so the knot is on the inside of the cup. I've used a few methods for this in the past. One of them is to use a bobby pin or hair pin as a needle, for these, I used a loop turner. Pull them through. 

In the whole cups, pour water to the line, and then nestle the wicked cups in them. 

Now the wick and water cup are ready to go, and you can fill the cups with soil and your plants. 

If you're using cuttings like I am, water the soil after planting the cuttings, after this, the wick will pull up enough water to keep it damp. Check the water the levels every few days until you get a feeling for how often they will need to be re-filled. 

To start seeds, you don't need to wet the soil, just plant them and cover with a plastic bag to create a mini-greenhouse. The wick will pull up the water slowly and water the seeds. The bag will mean it doesn't need to be refilled as often, but do check it every few days to see if it needs more water. Remove the bag after your seedlings get a couple inches tall. 

Tulips in the Sun to color!

In Anchorage, Alaska right now it's about 50 degrees Fahrenheit. I'm putting out seeds that are safe for before the final frost, and my rhubarb is starting to come up. For all of you who are waiting for spring, I hope you enjoy this coloring page!

You can print the blank Tulips in the Sun coloring page below. Click the images for larger versions.

Small jpg Tulips in the Sun coloring page:

Large transparent png Tulips in the Sun coloring page:

Here's a picture of my weird alien looking rhubarbs starting:

Garden themed coloring page

Yay!! It's spring. Okay, up here it's soggy, wet with snow melting and all that, but still, I'm getting containers planted and starting stuff that will go out at the end of May.

I hope you enjoy this garden themed coloring page.

Click the images below for blank versions to print and color.

Small jpg version:

Large transparent png version:

Like it enough to share some of your seed stash with me? Message me on Facebook. 

Spring Peace Symbol- coloring page

It's been a while since I've drawn anything this delicate, but I'm really feeling the spring vibe right now. There are seeds started on my shelves and in mini-recycled greenhouses on my porch and the weather is getting warmer even if there is still a ton of snow.

So I hope you enjoy this simple spring inspired quick coloring project!


Click the images below to print and color.

Small jpg version:

Large transparent png version:

Get this peace symbol on a shirt in my Redbubble shop!

Also just for fun- yesterday my husband took me out to see the ducks because it always makes me smile.

And this one of my little recycled greenhouse seed starters-

Potting new strawberries from runners

The photo above is some Tristans that I potted off runners from my original pot of Tristan strawberries. I actually had 2 runners, but gave my brother one when I realized the pot of French strawberries I was going to give him had several runners coming off of it. Since he's planning to plant a lot more strawberries for his granddaughter, I told him I'd write up a tutorial on how to handle the runners.


So first things first- a plant that is sending out a lot of runners is putting energy into that, and won't set as many flowers or berries. So if you want a plant bearing a lot of fruit, you want to cut off the runners as soon as you see them. But strawberries need to be replaced every few years, so the best method to keep them going is to have mother plants to make babies, and have some of those babies be next year's mother plants. Nature does this all on it's own with wild strawberries, but since it's your garden, container or otherwise, you probably want a little more control over the process. Also in cases like my precious Tristans- they do better in pots, and with pots I can overwinter them under my porch so they don't get as cold.

So, this is the plant that had a bunch of runners-

The runners are the long bare stem like things coming out of the pot. A couple inches from the end of each of these is a node, like a little elbow in the stem, that will have a couple leaves on it.

That's what you want to plant. Sometimes they will have roots starting when you catch them, sometimes they won't. This pot is full of organic soil, compost, and a bit of perlite to keep the soil mix light and easier to lift and to help drainage. I use perlite or vermiculite in all my pots to make them lighter, and as I switch out pots, dump that soil mix into my raised beds to make up for erosion and also to help keep the soil in my beds from getting too compacted.

This is a node with some roots starting.

Now what you want to do is anchor that node in the pot. In my beds, I've used small pebbles to do in the past, but for pots, I usually go with a hair pin. Easy, cheap and I always have a lot of them on hand. So if the node has roots, I'll dig a small hole and put it in then sweep some of the soil over them. Otherwise, I just pin the node in place.

This is what it looks like when it's done-

In a week, I'll check to see how they are doing. The one that had roots already should be ready to cut the runner at that point. The rest may or may not be. If it looks like there is a fair amount of growth- and they do grow fairly fast once they are rooted, I'll cut all the runners. 

In the spring, feed the pots, or pot up to a bigger pot if you think the soil is exhausted and watch your strawberries grow! 

Sunflower and bee photo box

I think that I should start doing more boxes from photographs. This is from a photo that I took last week. I love the bright, summer colors of the sunflower and bee. 

Click the box below for a larger version to print on card stock, cut out, score folds, fold and glue! 

I'm using the same colors in a shawl I'm working on now. 

Printable tulip gift box

It's been a while since doing one of the slightly offset graphics. I hope you enjoy this one. It was inspired by 2 things. First- the nights are getting cooler, so it's time to consider what kinds of bulbs to plant for spring next year. The other- I've been re-watching Fringe with my husband and a white tulip sounded like a good idea.

Click the image below for a larger version of the tulip printable box- print on card stock, cut out, score folds, fold, glue!

Catching Up with June

June gets to be really busy really fast. With festivals and fairs, and with things growing in the garden and other stuff that needs to be done. The photo above is from Pride Fest 2014. The woman to The Amazing Turnip Girl's left is Daphne DoAll LaChores- a short film about her was nominated for an Emmy in the Cultural category, and you can see that here. If you've never been to your local Pride Fest- it can be a whole lot of fun. It's been a family event for us since TG was very little, and it's something she looks forward to every year. The last couple of years, instead of having a parade, there is an Equality March, and TG dressed up like the Doctor and painted that sign to carry.

More Amazing Turnip Girl! This time at our local ren faire. The first day, even though she didn't know it, was a PIRATE theme. She had decided on her costume without knowledge of that, and closet cosplayed Captain Hook from Once Upon a Time. For people as seriously non-cosplay as I am- closet cosplay is when you put together a costume using what you have on hand, and what's in your closet rather than going all out for an exact replica. The hook is made from a plastic cup, a "gigantic twist tie" (I didn't see it, that's what she told me), layers and layers of the ends of various rolls of Duck tape, and spray painted. 

The newest of my swatch dolls. Recently Spoonflower let people who ordered one of their knit fabrics try a swatch of their performance pique. I really love this stuff for swatch dolls, it prints gorgeously, and it's very soft feeling. A little trickier to sew, but worth the extra care. You can get this swatch here.

Today was dandelions- but what we did was gather seeds.

Just wrapped our fingers around the puff balls, pull, dump the little seeds and fluff into a gallon zip bag. Then after we had denuded a lot of dandelions of fluff and gotten some very odd looks from the neighbors- I brought the bag inside, closed it tight, and just started playing with it. Rolling it in my fingers, rubbing it, and shaking it. After a bit I wound up with about a 1/4 cup of seed defluffed. So now we are going to try sprouting the seeds. Also, somehow I wound up covered in dandelion fluff.

OH!!! and the BIG news!!!

Look look!!! Pre-orders are available now on Amazon, and the books are coming out in November and December.

Affiliate links help pay for this site, and seeing these ordered would also be personal exciting. Really.

So how is your month going?

Printables Peas box

It has been a really busy week. Since it's all stuff I want to be doing, it's been fun too.
Here's a printable peas box- click on the image for the larger version, print on card stock, cut out, score folds, fold and glue! It might make a nice way to package a small gift for a gardening friend.

I'm currently working on animating a mandala video, the idea being that if it's on youtube, some people might find all the mandalas here that way! However, animating it it is taking a while. So far I have 13 seconds of animation which is about 153 frames. I'm planning to loop some of the frames, but it's still a very slow process.

Also the weather here has been glorious for Anchorage in April. So wonderful it threw my planting schedule right out the window. So I've been working in the yard and being eaten alive by mosquitoes. On the really good side, my strawberries which were late to make an appearance last year are popping up all over the yard. TATG and I opened the last jar of raspberry jam from last year and have been enjoying it. We also pruned my raspberries, said hi to the rhubarb which is starting to pop up and unfurl it's leaves, and started planting all the annuals. Like my sugar snap peas, which are doing twice as much as last year.

For everyone in a place that's seeing bad weather, my thoughts are with you. Stay safe, and I hope your loved ones are alright too.

Book review of Five-Plant Gardens with a FREE garden plan

Frequently people ask me questions about gardening. The truth is that a lot of the time I have no idea- just a very extensive library of books to consult. Most of those books are centered on growing edibles, not decorative plants.

My favorite kind of plant is perennials, and this book focuses exclusively on those. Perennials are the plants that come back year after year. This is a great book for people who want to plant decoratively but have no idea where to start. Perennials are easy to care for, and you don't have to buy new plants every year. Most perennials will get fuller and spread as time goes on, so a sparse initial planting will fill out nicely in the following years make them even more practical.  The perennials used aren't new plants, they are tried and true classic garden flowers that have been time tested.

The author has picked plants that handle a wide range of zones pretty well. She also includes a map with a legend of zones so you can figure out which zone you live in. She also has plans and plants for other variables. So if you have an area that's not getting full sunlight, but you still want to plant something there- you can. If you have a really wet corner of your yard, like where a drain spout pours off- there are plants that like the damp conditions and will thrive.

There are tips, zone information on the plants and a lot of information about how to get started with growing a garden. It's clear, simple, and very easy to understand. There is information about the different kind of plants,  and Latin names are included. The "Digging Deeper" tips offer ways to expand on the original plan, and do a bit more. If you're a beginning gardener, or someone who wants some nice looking plants growing in your yard but don't know where to start, this is a great place. The photographs of the plants are very well done and will help you pick the perfect theme for your garden. The illustrations of the gardens are also beautiful. The shopping lists show the number of plants to follow the plan.

The plans are simple, it's 5 plants each that are picked by color, appearance and height or to fit a theme, then arranged for a pleasing symmetry. Because of the simple shapes of the beds, they can be expanded, multiplied and joined to create new shapes and larger gardens. Several diagrams are given as examples.

Now, most of the best areas of my yard have perennials in them, like my berries and rhubarb, or they are beds for planting annual vegetables and herbs. But there is a shady corner that doesn't get quite enough sun but still gets a fair amount- and it would benefit from some order and prettiness, and I'd benefit from not having long grass grow right up against the house right there. So a mulched bed of flowers is perfect. Because I love floral scents, the plan I decided on is one that has a lot of very scented flowers that will work in my zone 4 area. The other thing is that my family likes to leave a lot of decisions up to me, but they can follow the plan for this area while I work on the other beds. The other reason that I picked this plan is the fragrant flowers in it are mostly good even down to zone 3, so a colder than average winter won't kill them.

We all be rewarded with floral scents, flowers we can cut, and the spot of pretty in the yard on sunny evenings while my husband barbecues.

Follow Storey Publishing on Facebook for recipes, gardening tips, giveaways and all sorts of DIY goodness.

The following plan is the one I'm using.

Perfumed Perennials

A garden that smells as good as it looks is a scent-sational addition to a shady yard. Put it near a deck or patio where you like to relax or entertain guests, or next to a window so you can enjoy the fragrance indoors. The secret to a successful scented garden is to include scented flowers that bloom at different times; that way, their perfumes won’t clash or be overwhelming, and you’ll have something pleasing to sniff over the longest possible season.

Lily of the Valley

'Clouds of Perfume' woodland phlox

Stargazer lily

August lily

'Hillside Black Beauty' bugbane

Click the image below for a description of the flowers and zone information. The numbers on the descriptions match the numbers on the plan.

Isn't that a pretty arrangement?

Excerpted from Five-Plant Gardens (c) Nancy J. Ondra. Photography by (c) Rob Cardillo. Illustrations by Beverly Duncan. Used with permission of Storey Publishing.
U.S.A. U.K.
Amazon.com affiliate links don't affect your cost, and provide extra income to me personally, which helps support this site.
I received a complimentary copy of this book to review, I received no other compensation, and my review is my honest opinion of the book. You can read more about my review policy here.