{"id":1075,"date":"2009-08-29T13:22:32","date_gmt":"2009-08-29T13:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/?p=1075"},"modified":"2009-09-02T14:43:41","modified_gmt":"2009-09-02T14:43:41","slug":"wrapping-up-the-harvest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/?p=1075","title":{"rendered":"Wrapping up the Harvest"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Freezing

Freezing Tomatoes<\/p><\/div>\n

We are about to take off to hiking in the Northwest for a week and so we’re gathering in some more of the harvest before we go. \u00a0The soups, sauces, and tomato supper dishes were not keeping up with the influx so we’ve taken to freezing the tomatoes. \u00a0Much like we do with blueberries, the tomatoes are simply cored and spread on a cookie sheet to freeze and then we take those rock solid red tennis balls and put them in plastic bags. \u00a0 Then at some point we will add those tomatoes to tomato-based sauces this winter.<\/p>\n

One of the fruits reaching the harvest point right now are the Japanese Pears.<\/p>\n

\"Japanese

Japanese Pears fully ripe<\/p><\/div>\n

This a tree we often call Josh’s miracle tree for the spectacular recovery it made from a near death experience. \u00a0The full story will be told at a later date… \u00a0Suffice it to say for now that this is a consistent yielder of fully organic, no-need-to-spray fruit. \u00a0The flavor will never match a good Doyenn\u00e9 du Comice Pear, but you can’t have everything…<\/p>\n

\"The

The Japanese Pear is a prolific bearer every year<\/p><\/div>\n

I should have mentioned earlier that the early mums that we get every year are doing their thing and have been out for at least a month. \u00a0Don’t know why they come so early but we won’t complain.<\/p>\n

\"Early

Early blooming Chrysanthemum<\/p><\/div>\n

This is a good time of the year for butterflies and dragonflies. \u00a0I noticed one odd looking dragonfly the other day and I now realize that it’s quite common. \u00a0In fact it’s known as the ‘Common Whitetail’. \u00a0Nonetheless it is quite distinctive to look at.<\/p>\n

\"Common

Common Whitetail (Libellula lydia)<\/p><\/div>\n

We’ve just had two days of rainfall (finally!) but I went out one of the hot dry days before that and dug a new Iris bed.<\/p>\n

\"Tilling

Tilling a new Iris bed<\/p><\/div>\n

I really went for overkill but who knows what else can go in this sunny spot before we get enough Iris to fill it. \u00a0At the moment we only have an additional 9 Iris from Schreiners<\/a> and several from our Boston connection but once I was into digging I had to complete the row. \u00a0It was very dry but I persisted with the plow attachment on the roto-tiller and then filled the trench with water and repeated the process. \u00a0I think I could have used the sweat from my drenched tee-shirt to soften the ground as well. \u00a0I followed by filling the new trench with compost and then doing it all over again. \u00a0Even with all of that it would probably be good to let the remainder lie fallow and do it again next year but we shall have to see what else needs planting in the interim…<\/p>\n

On the bird front we had a cute little visitor the other morning. \u00a0My guess is a Yellow-Throated Vireo but I’m open to other interpretations.<\/p>\n

\"Yellow-Throated

Yellow-Throated Vireo? (Vireo flavifrons)<\/p><\/div>\n

And let me close this post with another image of the Northern Sea Oats. \u00a0The world can simply not have enough of these beautiful plants which look different in every kind of light.<\/p>\n

\"Northern

Northern Sea Oats (Chasmanthium latifolium)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are about to take off to hiking in the Northwest for a week and so we’re gathering in some more of the harvest before we go. \u00a0The soups, sauces, and tomato supper dishes were not keeping up with the influx so we’ve taken to freezing the tomatoes. \u00a0Much like we do with blueberries, the tomatoes are simply cored and spread on a cookie sheet to freeze and then we take those rock solid red tennis balls and put them in plastic bags. \u00a0 Then at some point we will add those tomatoes to tomato-based sauces this winter. One of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,43,7,4,17,23,1,8],"tags":[40,11,38,39,48,27,42],"class_list":["post-1075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-bulbs","category-insectsetc","category-flowers","category-fruits","category-gardens","category-general","category-sources","tag-birds","tag-bulbs","tag-flowers","tag-fruits","tag-gardens","tag-insects","tag-sources"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1075"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1086,"href":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075\/revisions\/1086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}