It's Easy Being Green

As the nights get cooler and the days get shorter, apples that ripen in the Fall are finally ready to come off the tree.  We have several U-Pick apple orchards in the area and enjoy going to fill up a bag or two as we wander down the rows of apple trees.  Inevitably we come home with more than we can simply eat so naturally, we look for ways to preserve a piece of Fall.

Last year I dug out the apple slicer and corer.  It took about an hour or two to make my way through the entire harvest and get them ready for preserving.  We left several of the jars of apples plain and packed them in sugar water.  I used another batch of apples to make jars of apples packed in cinnamon red hot syrup.

Both have proven to be a winner and have their own special uses.  The regular apples I use for baked goods, pancakes or waffles and main dish recipes like Pork Chops with Apples.  The cinnamon red hot apples are good for desert toppings and breakfast treats like waffles.

Yearning to celebrate the changing of the seasons this weekend, I cooked up Baked Pork Chops with Apples and a side of Baked Sweet Dumpling Squash.  Both were delicious and I will put them in our seasonal recipe collection.  I’ll share those recipes later this week.  In the meantime, if you’re looking to can some apples, here are the two recipes I use.

Apples In Syrup

courtesy: Ball Complete Book of Preserving

Ingredients:

-  10 to 12 lbs. apples, stemmed, peeled, cored and quartered (to prevent browning submerge apple slices in 1/4 cup lemon juice and 4 cups water)

-  1 batch of hot syrup (I used a light syrup recipe because I wanted to preserve as much of the nautral apple flavor & sweetness as possible.  Make by combining 2 & 1/4 cups of granulated sugar in a large pot with 5 & 1/4 cups water.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved.  Reduce heat to low and keep warm until needed, making sure you don’t boil the mixture down)

Directions:

1)  Prepare canner, jars and lids.

2)  In a large stainless steel saucepan, combine apples and syrup.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat.  Reduce heat to medium-low and boil gently for 5 minutes, until heated through.

3)  Using a slotted spoon, pack hot apples into hot jars to within a generous 1/2 inch of top of jar.  Ladle hot syrup into jar to cover apples, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.  Remove air bubbled and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding hot syrup.  Wipe rim.  Center lid on jar.  Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.

4)  Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water.  Bring to a boil and process both pint and quart jars for 20 minutes.  Remove canner lid.  Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool and store.

Apples in Cinnamon Red Hot Syrup

courtesy:  Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

Ingredients to make 8 pint jars:

1 & 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1/2 cup cinnamon red hot candies

2 cinnamon sticks

2 tsp. whole cloves

1 tsp. ground ginger

2 cups water

1 & 1/2 cups vinegar

2/3 cup light-corn syrup

2 tbsp. red food coloring (optional)

24 medium apples, peeled, cored, sliced and treated according to directions above

Directions:

1)  Prepare canner, jars and lids.

2)  In a large stainless steel saucepan, combine sugar, cinnamon candies, cinnamon sticks, cloves, giner, water, vinegar, corn syrup and red food coloring, if using.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring frequently.  Add apples and stir gently over medium-high heat until apples are heated through, about 6 minutes.  Discard cinnamon sticks.  Turn heat off, but leave saucepan on heating element while filling jars.

3)  Using a slotted spoon, pack hot apples into hot jars to within a generous 1/2 inch of top of jar.  Ladle hot syrup into jar to cover apples, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.  Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding hot syrup.  Wipe rim.  Center lid on jar.  Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.

4)  Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water.  Bring to a boil and process for 15 minutes.  Remove canner lid.  Wait 10 minutes, then remove jars, cool and store.

Now let the fruits of your labor cool for a couple of days and coming up later in the week, I’ll share the delicious recipe I used for Baked Pork Chops and Apples and Sweet Dumpling Squash.

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Are you looking for an environmentally friendly way to get rid of those tires that may be piling up in your Vanderburgh County yard?  If so, Tire Amnesty day is coming up, allowing you a free opportunity to drop off old and used tires and not have to pay a thing for it.

Each year we discard tires at about the rate of one per person.  Vanderburgh County alone throws out about 175,000 tires a year which is a huge environmental waste.  Instead of throwing them in a creek or letting them rot in your yard, have those old tires recycled at the Tire Amnesty Day on Saturday, October 3rd.  The event will be held at the Civic Center in downtown Evansville from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.

The first four tires will be accepted for free and recycled.  Any additional tire beyond four will be accepted with a nominal $1 fee per extra tire.  Make sure mud and water has been drained from the tires and remove from the rims if possible.  They will only be accepting car and light truck tires.  No business tires or commercial vehicle tires will be accepted.

It’s nice to see Vanderburgh County taking some steps to keep tires out of local yards and other places of beauty throughout the county.  Left sitting around, old tires are a detriment to the environment and people should take more care in disposing of them.  It appears this event is catching on with local residents.  At their event in the spring, the county collected about 2,000 tires for recycling.

If you have any questions about the event, contact the Vanderburgh County Solid Waste District at (812) 436-7800.

Popularity: 4% [?]

This last week I ran across a desk that popped up on Freecycle.  I’ve been working off of a tiny desk that was barely big enough for my monitor and the keyboard since moving to Indiana last year.  The only challenge was the desk was about a 30 minute drive from the house so it was going to require some advance planning to find a morning I could sneak out early and pick it up.

Wild sunflowers bloom alongside one of the many gravel roads leading in and around Bluegrass Fish and Wildlife Area in northern Warrick County.

I chose Wednesday, a day when we don’t have much going on other than me going to work, and made plans with the Freecycler to come cart their old desk away.  I woke up early, loaded the car with recyclables to drop off on my way out of town, grabbed a free coffee at McDonald’s and then headed out.  I was supposed to call the Freecyclers just to warn them I was headed out so they would be ready for my arrival.

A typical grassy meadow borderd by forest and found throughout the Bluegrass Fish and Wildlife area

Needless to say, I wasn’t really surprised when nobody answered the phone and I didn’t get an immediate call back after leaving a message.  I wasn’t too concerned though since I needed to stop and drop off my recyclables before heading out to the desk.  After 10 minutes of sorting recyclables and getting them into their correct bins at the recycling center, I decided to drive around in the general area waiting for my return phone call.  It just didn’t make sense to drive all the way back home only to turn around and head back out that direction again.

Wildflowers of all different shapes and colors bloom in the grassy praires and even right alongside the guard rails on all of the gravel roads

Sometimes the magic of just driving around on the roads less-traveled is enough to keep me occupied.  I love seeing the land and discovering little hidden corners and hideaways.  As I was driving along on two-lane farm roads, I discovered a gravel road that veered off the pavement and up a hill.  I decided to meander up the road and check it out.    It ended up running into the nearby Bluegrass Fish and Wildlife Area, a network of prairies, woods and lakes that attract all sorts of local game.

Reflecting on their serene view, wildflowers bob and sway in the breeze at Bluegrass Fish and Wildlife Area

I parked the car and decided to turn my frustration at a flaky Freecycler into some good mind clearing fun.  I wandered down the gravel roads, checking all sorts of native wildflowers blooming just about everywhere you looked.  Since I”m a horticultural nut, I also spent some time collecting seed pods off of the different wildflowers so maybe next year I can grow some of my own and cultivate them.  The quiet and solitude of that 30 minutes was just what I need to rejuvenate my mind for the rest of the day.  The only man-made noise was from a plane passing overhead.  The rest was the breeze blowing through the reeds, fish jumping for bugs, insects and frogs chirping and whirring away and a heron swooping in over one of the lakes to setup his observation post, looking for his next meal.

Even dried flower pods are colorful. These ones are covered with bright orange and black beetles that look like cousins to the squash beetles that attacked my zuchinnis and cucumbers

I started out angry at yet another Freecycle Flake who says one thing and then does another but was able to turn the wheel down the road less-traveled and cleared my mind with nature.

A beautiful Monarch butterfly stops for a sip of nectar on one of probably thousands of purple thistles blooming in the area

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The so-called “Dog Days of Summer” are paying off in the veggie garden this week. My wife and I have spent quite a bit of time outside pulling weeds, smashing squash beetles, plucking Tomato Hornworms and giving our little 10×4 foot plot of wholesome paradise some good ‘ol TLC. Mother nature has been a big help too, squeezing some much needed rain out of a passing cloud or two at least once a week. That’s apparently a rarity out here in southwestern Indiana during August but who’s complaining? We’ll gladly take the free water!

Our collander is brimming with Friday's tomato harvest, sporting a fresh batch of roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and slicing tomatoes.

On Friday I had to make a mad dash through my tomato patch to harvest what was ripe before the plants sucked up all the rain water. I’ve been having a big problem with tomatoes expanding way too quickly with all the rain and then splitting just as they ripen. Since I’ve been picking preemptively, they’ve been faring much better though. Our roma tomatoes are producing a bumper crop of pear-shaped goodness that will be perfect with pasta. The cherry tomatoes haven’t let up either, gifting us with a fresh flush of fruit every couple of days.

On Saturday our baby was fast asleep for an afternoon nap so we decided to hit the garden again and do some cleanup. Squash beetles totally annihilated both of our zucchini plants. They bore into the stems of the plants and kill their ability to suck up water. They eventually get the wilt disease and die. I would normally be sad about it but those two plants each produced about ten pounds or more a piece of fresh summer squash.

A weekend bounty of fresh vegetables for the picking. Clockwise from top left: Handfuls of cherry and roma tomatoes, lemon cucumber, bell peppers and an Orange Oxheart heirloom tomato.

While we were out there dealing with the squash beetles we harvested another basket full of produce. Saturday’s take included more roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, lemon cucumbers, bell peppers and an Orange Oxheart heirloom tomato. All have really taken off and produced wonderfully in southwestern Indiana. We can’t wait to enjoy the fresh tastes of each of them.

My failures were definitely sweet corn, yellow squash, pickling cucumbers and pumpkins. I’ve been struggling with powdery mildew spreading from one cucumber vine to the next and then it spread onto my pumpkins. Both are still putting on fresh leaves and trying to set fruit but the mildew just marches on. My sweet corn growth was very stunted and produced some very tiny ears of corn, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. I didn’t follow proper planting recommendations by planting at least four rows so that was probably the cause there. Yellow squash were attacked by squash beetles early on and never really had a chance.

We still have another three months to go before the first average fall frost so I think our harvest days are far from over. I’m also going to try my hands at growing some fall vegetables this year and am getting ready to tackle that project this week.

Popularity: 3% [?]

It’s already coming up on mid-August but there is still plenty to do out in the yard. This week my Mammoth Sunflowers started blooming, so there is now an array of happy faces greeting us all around the back of the house. Many of them have reached 8 feet or taller and continue to grow even taller with each passing day.

One of our many Mammoth Sunflowers that started blooming this week has a special resident. If you look closely at the bottom of the bloom, you'll see a Praying Mantis waiting in the shadows.

Now that they’re blooming, I can start my bee survey. It’s all part of the Great Sunflower Project run by Gretchen LeBuhn at San Francisco State University. The project was started to help understand the challenges that one of our most important pollinators, bees, are now facing. After all, scientists say every third bite of food you take is the result of bees doing their good work.

A Bumblebee makes his way around the blooming sunflower, collecting pollen.

I set myself up in my lawn chair this morning, grabbed a cup of coffee and sat and observed one of my sunflowers for a few minutes to see how long it took for 5 bees to visit one bloom. The maximum wait time allowed by the study is 30 minutes but I didn’t even get close to that amount. As it turns out, just six minutes into my sunflower observation I had reached 5 bees visiting and happily pollinating.

That’s good news! Not only do the bees pollinate the flowers but also the bountiful harvest growing in our own backyard vegetable garden. I’m hoping just a few minutes spent helping their research will help develop some solutions to dwindling bee populations. While small, they’re so important to our life.

I’ve even considered doing some home beekeeping at some point in time. My yard is way to small to even think about it now but in the future when I have a few acres under my belt, I’m hoping I can get some hives going.

If you’re interested in learning more about The Great Sunflower Project or want to know how to conduct your own bee survey, just click that link and head to their website.

Happy pollinators hard at work on a Mammoth Sunflower

Popularity: 6% [?]

This weekend my wife and I were looking for some free things to do with the baby where perhaps, a little fussiness on her part would be allowed.  We made some stops on our errand list and then headed over to the open house put on by the Southwest Indiana Master Gardeners at their demonstration gardens.

Looking through the historical kitchen garden at the gazebo taking center focus in the Southwest Indiana Master Gardeners Demonstration Gardens. It's located in Evansville, IN at the former site of an old state hospital, now long gone.

The event is an opportunity for the Master Gardeners to showcase their skills and chat with people interested in learning the hobby of gardening.  Wherever I’ve lived, I’ve found the Master Gardeners to be the “go-to” resource for the best information on how to make your garden grow in the particular region you’re at.  They can offer insights into local pests and diseases, what grows best and what you shouldn’t waste your time on and maybe new things to look out for.  Master Gardener programs generally work in partnership with the local agricultural extension office which provides another amazing source of gardening info.

The demonstration gardens feature many All-America Selection Winners, not only in the flower features but also fruits and vegetables. I took notes on the varieties that seemed to be thriving so I can try them out in my own garden next season.

Not only did we get to wander through several different garden styles like a water garden, rain garden, butterfly and bird garden but they also had several different vegetable and fruit demonstration gardens as well.  One of the goals was to showcase two different ways to grow your own food, either organically in raised beds or in normal garden plots.  They also showcase many All-America Selections; plants that are nationally tested and proven locally for the past 75 years.

The berry demonstration garden showcased a plot of strawberries, blueberries and another plot of vining berries. Blackberries and raspberries were trained to climb up the arbor that separated the two plots from each other.

It was great being able to walk through the demonstration gardens and get some ideas for our gardens of the future and the advice dished out by the Master Gardeners was great too.  Now I’m considering taking their classes this fall and becomming a Master Gardener myself.

Popularity: 3% [?]

We got a round of thunderstorms rolling through southern Indiana around 4 a.m. and another spout of rain.  The other half of garden bed I’ve been waiting to complete turning and getting ready for planting was primed and ready to go after the rain this morning and it was overcast so I wouldn’t char my skin.

I still have seedlings of cantaloupe, cucumbers, pumpkins, tomatoes, lettuce and a few other random things still waiting to be planted.  I finished weeding out the major chunks of grass and then raked in a layer of Schulz Enriched Gardening Soil for Flowers and Vegetables.  I’m using this as a quick ammendment while my compost gets good and hot and as a holdover until I can put together a raised bed system for next season.

I was a bit surprised though when I dumped out my bag of soil ammendment and found some trash.  Schulz was kind enough to include bits of shredded plastic and even foil cigarette wrappers (menthol to be exact) in my bag of garden soil.  I’m no hort expert but I’m guessing there hasn’t been a new study saying smokes for your garden generate whopping yields!

Free trash included in my bag of garden soil ammendment

I’ve sent Schulz my findings and will see what they have to say about the matter.  In the meantime, it looks like tomorrow will be planting day for Phase 2 of my veggie garden.  Meanwhile my Orange Oxheart Heirloom tomato is under attack by aphids.  It looks pretty piddly right now despite the fact that it’s the tallest tomato plant in the patch.  It had a flush of new blooms at the top but all have turned brown and are dieing.  Since I take an organic approach, I got down on bent knee today and squashed and picked off as much bugs as I could.  We’ll see if the poor thing can recover.  The cherry tomatoes and roma’s have all put on a new flush of growth with all the rain and are looking good.

My sweet corn has finally emerged and is taking off quick.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it does end up making the “knee high by July” standard.  Lemon cucumbers are sprouting new leaves after about a week or two of transplanting.  Zuchinnis are putting on new growth and new blooms are emerging.  It looks like a fruit or two have already taken hold and are sucking up the free water.  My eggplant is flowering and will hopefully bear soon.  Yellow wax beans and the limas are off to the races along my fence line.  They’re beginning to bush out and my late season pea vines are taking advantage of the overcast days and have reached about 6-8″ tall.

How is your garden doing?  Let me know!

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