The calm before the storm

Not that there is a storm on the horizon but simply another way of saying the way this plot looks now is nothing like it will look in a month, two months or even three months. It's inspiring to watch the transformation.
This is a time where we plan, consistently check temperatures and potential rainfall. Starting early in April, we are officially in one of our favorite times of the year- planting mode.

            

Another use for our jams and jellies

It's the Christmas season and we are baking in the kitchen using our jams and jellies and snacking on our fresh kiwi.
We decided to make thumbprint cookies. Check out the pic below to view how we make them.

The red is Strawberry Fig jam . The green is mint jelly and the yellow is Lemon Marmalade.

Lemons and Peppers finish the season

Is it really the end of November and we're still picking vegetables and fruits? 
Take a look at the abundance of peppers and lemons we picked over Thanksgiving Break.
We froze most of the peppers but the lemons were turned into lemonade concentrate, perfect to freeze and use it this spring. We also stayed with the jelly and jam theme and made lemon marmalade.
This is our first time with lemon marmalade but the first batch is great.

 

Kiwis and Thanksgiving

Do you know what 50 kiwis look like?
Look below and you'll find out.
We picked these yesterday ahead of the frost we had last night.

Kiwis set fruit in their 4th year. These are the product of one four year old tree. Next year we will have 4 more four year old trees.

These are sweet as sugar and will complete the ripening process inside in a few days

Even in the winter, there's always activity in the Backyard Garden!

Zipper peas and Kiwis

Much to our surprise this weekend, we picked and processed 3 more quarts of zipper peas.
They've only had water and care on the weekends, nothing during the week because of our schedules. Looks like we'll be able to pick again this weekend too. 

Here's our first kiwi too. All of them should be ready in the next week. We should have 50 or so in our first year picking.
A side note: Kiwis are easy to grow and can survive the cold weather. Vines grow at a fast pace and start producing fruit in their 4th year of growth. We have 8 vines but only 2 of them are 4 years old. Next year the other six will be in their 4th year, so we're looking forward to a year from now and many more kiwis.

 

Tropical storm warning and the backyard garden

Here's a first. We are canning peppers for jelly, picking zipper peas for freezing and we end up with a tropical storm warning.  That's never happened before. We had wind and over 3 inches of rain in a day.
The backyard garden fared well, we actually needed some rain for the peppers and peas but there's a lot of small branches and debris to clean up. We are fortunate not to be affected like they were in Florida though.

Picking and canning in September

We had a great picking day yesterday especially with the first zipper peas of the season. Looks like vegetables for dinner tonight. We also picked our weekly amounts of sweet and hot peppers which we turned into pepper jelly, pickled jalapenos and hot bananas, mint jelly and pineapple jalapeno jelly.