First lets talk about the fall garden. The early morning was raining, but once it stopped I was out to plant up the fall garden. Above are my cabbages and kohlrabis. The starts are about two and a half weeks old, but big enough to go out. I put in 3 Fun Jen, 2 Michihili Chinese cabbage, 9 Early Jersey cabbage, and 11 kohlrabi. I really hope the earwigs will behave and leave the Michihili alone. They did a job on some of the spring Chinese cabbage.
The next bed was my Asian greens bed. I put in bok choy, tatsoi, and mizuna. I also put in seed for the same. I'm hoping to put in another succession in a couple of weeks. And another in September.
The kale went was put into two rows. One is Winterbor, and one is Dwarf Curly. In the middle I tossed some cilantro seed that was ripe in various parts of the garden. I'm hoping it will come up quickly, but it might not come up until fall.
In addition I put out some lettuce. Red Sails, Deer Tongue, Little Gem, and Summertime. They didn't get a row cover. And I suppose I ought to have put out the Summertime earlier, but vacations mess such things up.
Now on to the plums. Yesterday I was in the supermarket and they had plums for sale. I knew I wanted to make plum sauce, but I usually only buy plums from the farmers market as they tend to be a lot tastier. But I figured why not try them. I wanted to make two batches of sauce and each batch requires four pounds. So later in the day I bought an additional four pounds of plums from the farmers market. When you go to the farmers market at least they tell you what kind of plum you are getting - Queen Rosa. I wish my Green Gage plum tree would produce. The plums at the farmers market are $4/pound. Which means every pint of plum sauce I make will cost me $4 per jar just for the plums.
I made the two batches separately. I figured the Queen Rosa sauce would be so much tastier than the supermarket plums. I tasted them after I pureed them with a stick blender. The supermarket sauce was horribly sweet. The Queen Rose sauce was mouth puckering tart. So I tossed them in together and they made a very good sauce that way. I'm kind of surprised it worked out that way. But happy.
I used the Ball Blue Book recipe. Though I don't have my own plums yet, the onions and mustard seed were from my garden. Now if I could figure out why my plum tree is so unhappy.
For me there is no "horribly sweet". I consider them delicious :). Queen Rosa, I wouldn't go near! Wonder why they're so expensive for a tart plum....How do you use your plum sauce? I have all of 8 plums, if they don't shed before ripening.
ReplyDeleteWell I can't eat a lot of things since I can't eat peppers and tomatoes. So it can be used as ketchup, BBQ sauce, or in its more traditional way by dipping things like eggrolls. Last year I didn't have nearly enough of it. I'm hoping this year it won't run out. With eight pints I think I'm safe. Though I might try to make a peach BBQ sauce too.
DeleteHave never made plum sauce but looking at your lovely jars of the stuff, am very tempted to have a go - like your suggested uses above too.
ReplyDeleteI was doing some of the same tasks today, planted out napa cabbage, celery, celeriac, lettuces, and amaranths. Worked on some other fall/winter seedlings.
ReplyDeleteI read that Greengage plums can take up to 7 years before they start to crop, so perhaps you just need to wait a bit longer. And they also produce best when they have another European plum nearby for cross pollination.
Your jars of plum sauce are beautiful. Good luck on your fall garden! Nancy
ReplyDeleteWOW that is nice looking. I loveplums, but my plum tree has never set. I'm thinking it was mismarked when I bout it. :-(
ReplyDeleteWe finished the last of my plum jam this weekend. I get the plums from mum's tree which makes it a lovely cheap thing to make. Her harvests vary hugely from year to year, sometimes the tree is laden with fruit, other years the pickings are considerably slimmer. Unfortunately she's never really got a handle on which variables make the difference (other than whether or not the birds decide they like plums....).
ReplyDeleteif my folks come out here this fall, i can have my dad stop by & take a look. he ran an orchard until he retired in 2006. he would probably recommend all sort of horrible chemical fixes, but at least he might know what the problem(s) is/are.
ReplyDeleteIf he lives in the Northeast I'm sure he'd know all the nasty things a fruit tree could get. I do know a few things, but not many. I know my peach tree does get leaf curl, but it never gets it very badly so I'm not too worried about it yet. I think some kind of insect kills off the growing tips too. Again it is annoying, but doesn't seem to be affecting the tree all that much. I've got some type of gall on my apple tree leaves. I am worried about my plum tree though. It is really struggling. I think it has an iron deficiency (I really need to check the pH there).
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