Who else is clinging to these last few sunny days. With dipping temps and limited daylight, there is no doubt that fall is here… and winter right behind it. Gone are the days of barefoot stomps through the garden and lunchtime maintenance walks through the garden. There’s no time for regret however, as it is Harvest Season, even on a ½ acre, the projects pile up quickly. There’s garlic to put in the ground, apples, pears, and grapes to harvest, and a bunch of seasonal maintenance to tackle. There is a silver lining however, jams, ciders, and root veggies are ready for their time to shine.
We’ve boiled the grapes, skin and all to make some jam for canning. There’s nothing like a fresh Peanut Butter & homemade Jam sandwich with some salt & vinegar chips for lunch. We use it instead of syrup on pancakes too… so good! Apples and Pears come in waves, with apples ready for processing first.
We have two apple trees that haven’t been identified, but one is a red/yellow blend and the other is a golden delicious perhaps. The combination makes a great cider and the apples themselves get dehydrated, cut up for snacks, and added to oatmeal.
Cider takes 4-6 weeks from processing and fermenting, then bottling which will make cider ready in the next few months, but optimally, for next year.
Pears stay on the tree the longest and hold in the garage for a few weeks while we finish wrapping up other projects. We’ve yet to shake the tree and release the ripe pears from the branches. From what we’ve seen on cider making, it can get pretty skunky and still be used. Look up Scrumpy Cider for reference.
We are also seed harvesting, because at some point, we need to fund our effort to giveaway 10,000 free, organic, heirloom seed kits. In an effort to self fund the projects, we’ve launched our Beats, Beds & Browns web store where you can buy t-shirts, custom air force one’s, and seed kits from our seed saving efforts. All seeds will be non-gmo and pesticide free, from our garden.
We played young and fun this past weekend while not only making cider all day, but hitting a preseason Blackhawks game and then the Lyrical Lemonade 9th Anniversary Concert at The Riviera, we had a blast, but ran out of steam after a very long day. We missed some of the local headliners and national stars on stage, but from what we saw, we were pumped and have started to learn more about Lyrical Lemonade’s founder Cole Bennett, a local kid (Plano, IL) done good!