A soft autumn view of East Dollar Lake in northern Alberta….
Garden snapshot: Parsley.
When asked about “seriously hardy and reliable” herbs for our climate, parsley is always a ready answer. I grew both Italian (flat leaf, seen here) and French (curly leaf) this year – I love them both and can never decide which one is my favourite. I harvested the leaves from all of my plants in late September and we’ve had two snowstorms and a couple of weeks of hard overnight frosts since then, and they are still merrily growing away. If the weather holds, I will get another handful of fresh leaves yet before winter settles in. Sweet! I won’t dig these up to overwinter as I have no room indoors (and they won’t last five minutes with our cat)…but I’ve had parsley overwinter inground in the past so perhaps it will be a gift that keeps on giving next year.
Another type of parsley I’ve grown in the past is root (Hamburg) parsley – our growing season is so short in Calgary that I don’t get really large roots from the plants, but I’ve had decent success with them each year I’ve put them in. And, as a bonus, you can eat the tops as well. A hugely versatile plant!
Is parsley a favourite of yours, as well?
End of the season….
Had a chuckle when I saw this rhubarb leaf while cleaning up my plot at the community garden…reminded me a bit of a certain Dali painting.
Perhaps I need some more sleep. 😉
Larch love!
It’s easy to see why I adore larch trees, particularly in autumn.
And yes, that is snow in the background! We’ve had two significant snow storms in Calgary since September 29th. The first one dumped 31 centimetres (12.2 inches) of the white stuff on us (which, amazingly, wasn’t a record, although it was close). More snow is expected early next week so I had better try to get my garlic planted in the next few days!
Calgary snapshot: Long View Polar Bear.
Beakerhead, the annual festival celebrating the mashup of science and art, rolled into Calgary this week. I usually try to head out every year and view at least one of the spectacular art installations that the festival highlights, and last Saturday, I managed to squeak in a few minutes to head to the former site of the old Enoch Sales house to take in the Long View Polar Bear, a 35-foot likeness of one of the north’s most iconic animals. The bear is made out of over one hundred metal doors salvaged from wrecked automobiles. The gigantic sculpture was designed “to show the connection between carbon footprint and habitat loss.”
Last year, the same site was home to the “Up”-inspired installation Dreams Never Die, by Maria Galura , which I also went to see (but failed to post about at the time). The 114-year-old Enoch Sales house was actually integrated into this work; the long abandoned building burned down on February 2 of this year. (You can read about the history of the home here).
Two new publications! Disasters in Canada: Prepare and Be Safe – Wildfires and Floods.
I’m delighted to announce that Beech Street Books has published two more of my non-fiction books for children! Floods and Wildfires are part of the Disasters in Canada: Prepare and Be Safe series. They help children understand the causes of these disasters and what to do if their communities are threatened. I really enjoyed researching and writing these titles and hope they will be educational for young readers!
The series Disasters in Canada: Prepare and Be Safe is available for order from the publisher here. And, if you’re interested, please check out my other titles from Beech Street Books: Canadian Science – Technology and Sustainability: Natural Resources; Canadian Science – Technology and Sustainability: Biodiversity; and To Be Canadian – Fairness for All: Equity.
Recipe: Sea buckthorn berry and apple jelly – plus, an e-book of sea buckthorn berry recipes!
Recipe: Sea buckthorn berry and apple jelly.
(Photo credit: R. Normandeau)
My hubby and I managed to get out this past Saturday morning and gather some sea buckthorn fruit so that I could try my hand at making jelly from it. If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you’ll recall that I made a sea buckthorn beverage last year – I just love the citrusy taste of the berries and their gorgeous sun-bright colour.
Sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) is a fairly common roadside plant here in Calgary – the City planted many of them years ago, mostly for erosion control on slopes. It’s one of those shrubs you’d be hard-pressed to kill: it’s tough-as-nails, drought-tolerant, pollution and salt-tolerant (good for our winter roads and all that de-icing salt), and a fairly aggressive spreader. You don’t find it employed as an ornamental landscape plant very often, but it’s really very pretty, with silvery-green leaf clusters and the brilliant autumn fruit. (Both male and female plants are required for fruit production). Sure, some people may be turned off by the thorns, but they contribute to the shrub’s rabbit and deer resistance, which can’t be a bad thing, right?!
The only thing that irks me to no end about gathering sea buckthorn berries is that it’s just such a difficult process – the fruit only comes off the stems under extreme duress. The kind of duress that leaves you standing there with bright orange seabuckthorn juice all over your clothes and squirted in your eye. I’ve read that commercial harvesters of the shrub just go along and prune off fruit-bearing branches, freeze them for awhile, and then “shake” the berries free…but I didn’t give that a go. I ought to have – it took me FOREVER to get the berries off of the branches.
But it’s worth it for this jelly. Trust me. It’s so yummy and pretty!
Small-Batch Sea Buckthorn and Apple Jelly
(I added apples to this recipe because I didn’t use commercial pectin – sea buckthorn doesn’t have very much natural pectin, so the addition of a high-pectin fruit helps the jelly set properly. I had some British Columbia-grown ‘Sunrise’ apples, but use any variety you love. Crabapples would work as well).
4 cups sea buckthorn berries, washed thoroughly
3 apples, washed, peeled, cored, and diced finely (if you don’t want to go to the trouble, and your apples are organic, you can leave the peels on)
1/2 cup water
Place berries, apples and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer fruit for 20 minutes. Stir periodically and crush the fruit against the side of the pan with the back of the spoon. (It all mashes down pretty well on its own, and won’t require much additional help).
Strain the fruit through a jelly bag (or several layers of cheesecloth) over a large bowl. Don’t force the fruit through the bag – this will make the jelly cloudy and you don’t want that! Set it up so that the fruit can slowly strain overnight.
In the morning, sterilize your canning jars and lids. Measure out the juice. I ended up with 2 cups using this recipe, but your measurement may vary slightly. Place the juice into a saucepan and mix in an equal amount of white sugar. Bring the sugar and juice to a rolling boil and boil, stirring constantly, until you’ve reached gel point.
Carefully pour the jelly into the sterilized jars, apply the lids and rings, and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes (don’t forget to adjust the length of time according to altitude, as specified in this handy chart). If you plan to eat the jelly soon and don’t want to go to all the trouble of processing jars for storing, you can just pop the jars into the fridge once the jelly is cool. It is a very small batch, after all…and you’ll be hooked once you have a taste!
Do you grow sea buckthorn in your garden, or do you forage for sea buckthorn berries?
Looking for more sea buckthorn berry recipes?
My sea buckthorn berry recipe book, Sea Buckthorn Bounty: Recipes is now available here!
