Fenton Friday: Blackberry Sauce

This week was a very strange one. We had several code orange/red/'purple days in a row due to wildfire smoke from Canada, and that meant hardly any time outside at all - much less at the plot. We also had pretty much zero rain -- again. This is the driest spring I can recall and it is getting really tiresome already having to go over and water just to keep things alive, when I'd rather spend that time more productively planting things that are much delayed and clearing out weeds.

We did manage to plant two mounds of Zucchini seeds ('Dark Star' and 'Incredible Escalator', a climbing variety) and several kinds of Peppers ('Fish', 'Cherry Pick', 'Prism', 'Lunchbox', and 'Where's the Heat,' a sweet habenero). These are the same pepper seedling plants that the baby bunny chewed down to the nub. Thankfully, they already started putting on new growth a few days later and should be fine now. 

I picked a quart of blackberries on one day and then another 4+ cups on another day. The second picking of berries I made into Blackberry refrigerator jam -- well, it was more sauce-like than jam, but it should still be delicious on poundcake, ice cream, etc.

I pulled out one Garlic to test it and it is definitely of harvestable size, so I'll pull the rest in the next few days and hang it for curing. That will free up space to sow our cutting garden flowers.

I also picked some more Pea pods this week, but the pea plants are looking very tired so I think that is the last of them. The Spinach has also now bolted so I'll be pulling that out soon too.

The Lettuces and Arugula are still under a shade cloth, so should hang on for a few more harvests.

I picked lots of edible "rat tail" seed pods from the bolted Daikon Radish. They are delicious tossed on a salad. What I didn't anticipate is that the kittens (turrning one-year-old now) also love the radish seed pods. They grab several of them as soon as I bring them in the kitchen and play with them for hours. I'm sure several are under my oven right now.

How is your garden plot growing this week?

 

About Fenton Friday: Every Friday during the growing season, I'll be giving you an update on my community garden plot at the Fenton Street Community Garden just across the street from my house in zone 7 Mid-Atlantic MD/DC border. I'm plot #16. It is a 10 ft x 20 ft space and this is our 12th year in the garden. (It opened in May 2011.) See  past posts about our edible garden by putting "Fenton" into the Search box above (at the top, left on this blog).