When I came back to the Hinckley House, I returned to a bunch of ripening tomatoes! The one I pictured a few posts back was a Giant Belgium — and there really are some giant ones that have yet to ripen. The tomato above is a Mortgage Lifter, trying to live up to its name by being big and salable (I guess). My Opalkas have finally started ripening without blossom-end rot, but my Brandywines are all green, still. I’ve just got the four plants (all heirloom varieties), but I think it’ll be a very tomato-y late summer.
Tonight’s dinner wasn’t much to look at, I admit, but it was remarkable in other ways. The potatoes were grown in my Minneapolis garden; the eggs came from my neighbors’ hens; the bread and butter pickles were homemade from Hinckley garden cucumbers. Not too bad, right? It would have been more impressive with homegrown broccoli, but I had some of that for lunch. I got the eggs (a full dozen!) when I brought my neighbors a ripe tomato and a jar of the grape jelly I made over the weekend. See here:
I picked about half the grapes from my Minneapolis vines, completely stained my fingers in the process of turning them into juice, and then I made seven jars of jelly. I usually store my extra jars in the freezer, but I decided to properly can them this year, so let’s hope it worked! I’m not super crazy about grape jelly, generally, but this stuff is pretty good, and I have to do something with those grapes every year!
Excellent! Now thats some good eating right there, lol. You know , I was born and raised and lived all but 7 years of my 56 years on the same farm my great grand parents built out of the bush, we never bought vegies or meat or milk or eggs or friut, it was our way of life, its just in the last few years I have come to understand the importance and joy of that life, eating the way we were meant to eat, from our own soil and hands, if I could have a wish it would be for all to have that life, you are truly living the good life, your jelly sounds amazing, thats something I have never made.