Peach Crop Failure

Brown Rot. Our peaches are rotting on the trees before they ripen.

This is all we got from one tree. We should be getting 5 times this much from each tree. They won't even be edible. But we'll use them to make peach brandy. Jane from Hard Work Homestead has a great recipe.

Adding insult to injury, SVBs are on the attack. At least we got one healthy squash out of this plant. Thankfully we have several other productive plants.

We're really sad about our peaches this year. A 200 pound harvest has turned into a 20 pound failure.  We really count on them for our winter store. Aaarrrggg! We'll be lucky to get 5 gallons of wine and a little brandy this year.

I must say, for all the loss, there are also great gains. There always seems to be enough and I'm thankful for that.

Harvest Monday

You have to look closely, but a volunteer Vivian romaine plant is there between the kale and arugula.

The highlight of our Harvest Monday with Daphne's Dandelions is a single volunteer romaine plant. At the end of May we harvested what we thought was the last of the spring romaine. This little guy was a complete surprise! He'll make a nice salad for lunch today.

Last Tuesday we harvested more kale and radishes. On Wednesday it was our first carrot. On Thursday it was even more radishes and a bit of arugula. On Friday we gathered raspberries (we've been gathering raspberries all week). Then on Saturday we harvested our first peaches and a single zucchini. Finally, on Sunday we harvested green leaf lettuce. Sometime during the week we harvested a single jalapeno pepper.

Of the six trees we have, this one always ripens first. The fruit is very fragile and small. We usually get just a few peaches. Maybe it's a Georgia peach tree, not meant for Pennsylvania. Who knows? We inherited it. The rest of the trees won't ripen for several weeks.

Bel made an 8 foot bean trellis earlier this week. The vines are climbing quickly.

romaine 12 oz
green leaf lettuce 1 lb
arugula 4 oz
kale 3 lb 12 oz
Radishes 1 lb 14 oz
Raspberries 1 lb 4 oz
blackberries 6 oz
Carrots 1 lb
Zucchini 1 lb
peaches 1 lb 6 oz
1 jalapeno pepper

Frozen Fruit Pops and a New Follower

We want first to welcome our newest follower Annie's Granny.  We love your blog and are so glad you've joined us. We hope to keep you coming back for more and more of our wonderful gardening adventures.

Today Bel made blueberry-peach frozen smoothie pops for the boys. The ingredients are very simple. She pulled some of last year's fruit harvest from the freezer, used agave sweetener and added a little lemon juice to keep the colors bright.  We've read that agave is much easier on the body than cane. It's very sweet, much lighter than honey, and has a wonderful caramel like flavor. The boys love it on their oatmeal, and I love it in my coffee.

Bel has discovered that the trick to vacuum packing is to freeze the fruit on trays first. It eliminates the problem of clogging the machine with moisture.

Wholesome Sweeteners Organic Blue Agave from Costco.

Twenty minutes prep time for the pops, provides twenty-three minutes of quiet time for mom. Ahhhh...

Blueberry-Peach Smoothie Pops

1 2/3 cup fresh, frozen or canned peaches

1/2 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

1/3 cup sugar or 1/4 cup agave nectar

 1 tsp lemon juice

In a blender puree all the ingredients, pour into molds and freeze until firm.