Campobello's killer rose is in full bloom. This is a rambler type rose which some seasonal residents brought to the Island a few years back. It is an amazing thing the hips in the fall are small and very plentiful and the birds love them so it has been spread all over the Island. Birds tend to drop the seeds when they are roosting in trees for the night and this provides this lovely rose with just the environment that it has been looking for, it loves to climb trees and can be found in several locations 50 to 60 feet up a tall spruce tree. I have one in my garden that I started from seed that I collected several years ago and it is going to bloom for the first time this year, it's all budded out but the blooms haven't opened yet. I'm just back from picking this bouquet on the North Road where it is in full bloom. I just noticed for the first time that it comes to two colours pink and white. Now I have to wait for mine to bloom to see what colour I have.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Endeavour
My friend Pru's brother in law works at NASA in Florida and sent her this beautiful photo. Part of his job is stocking the shuttle and space station with supplies that the Astronauts will need.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Grow Bag Garden
Very please with my grow bag gardens. Everything seems to be doing very well. Tomatoes in the Greenhouse and the small Grow Bag Greenhouse are in bloom. I've already had several meals from the Joi Choi, Swiss Chard, Kale and Lettuce. The Greenhouse Cucumbers, F1 Hybrid Carmen, are growing fast with blossom buds but no flowers yet and the Purple Star Peppers in shopping bag are almost in bloom, one more sunny day should do it. So good to have my own fresh produce this early in the season.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
East Quoddy - Head Harbour Light
Beautiful sunny cool spring day and I decided to take a walk to the Light House and back. Early training for next years Camino walk from Le Puy to Santiago. My time wasn't half bad 3 hours 45 minutes and it is something like 18 KM. I am however exhausted tonight.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Camino de Santiago
Plans are under way for the fall meeting of the Maritime Friends of the Camino and Peter Coffman has agreed to attend and give a presentation of his Camino Photographs. Peter gave his presentation in Halifax last fall but most of us from New Brunswick didn't do the long drive so it will be great to see his exhibit and presentation at our fall meeting. Peter walked the Camino with the late Oliver Schroer, the Canadian musician who composed and recorded the music for his CD “Camino” as they walk in May and June of 2004. I used Oliver's music as background for my DVD slide show and shorter YouTube video of my 2008 Camino.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Joi Choi Chinese Cabbage - Italian Parsley
Not sure if you are supposed to wait and harvest this when it is a whole head or cut it a leaf at at a time. A whole head would be too much for me so I've started using it a few leaves at a time and it is very good. A lovely dark green must be full of antioxidants and other good things.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
The last of the grow bag garden areas, June 2, 2009.
The last of the grow bag garden areas, June 2, 2009., originally uploaded by Campobello Island.
A short walk out the path to the hidden garden. This area has been many things over the years, it started out as a large vegetable garden and right now it is a perennial garden and lawn. Earlier this spring I dug up a 12 foot square area and covered it with black plastic mulch so I could garden on top of the mulch this year with grow bags. My plan right now is to divide it next year with a two foot wide cross shaped path creating four 5 foot square raised beds to grow vegetables in.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Continuing the tour of grow bag gardens June 1, 2009
Continuing the tour of grow bag gardens June 1, 2009, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.
Continuing the tour of my grow bag gardens starting at the greenhouse where the last video clip left off and visiting the former herb garden that I turned over and covered with black plastic mulch for this year. I have grow bags on top of the mulch and this fall I will remove the plastic and add the soil from the grow bags to the bed and prepare it for it's new life as some sort of garden next year. Right now my thoughts are an Alberta Spruce in the center surrounded by a circle of English Lavender with the rest of the bed covered with a dark mulch. Hard to say how many times I will change my mind before next year though. There is one more short video clip to do leaving this garden and walking out a path through the trees to the hidden where I have another area of grow bags to show you. Hopefully I will get that done in the next few days.
The start of canning season.
The official start of canning season and first up to the plate is Rhubarb. I use my trusted and well worn copy of Stocking Up , my 1977 edition when ever canning or preserving I find all of their instructions easy to follow and tried and true.
Quoting from the book, the Rhubarb method that I used:
Rhubarb (hot pack method)
For hot pack the water in your canner should be boiling and you should add boiling water enough to bring the level 1 to 2 inches over the top of the jars.
Wash and cut the Rhubarb into ½ inch pieces. Add ¼ cup of honey to each quart of Rhubarb and let stand for several hours to draw out juice. Bring to a boil then ladle into sterile jars filling to within ½ inch of the top. Add sterile lids and tighten. Place in canner as instructed above and process for 10 minutes . Timing from the moment that the water returns to a rolling boil. Putting the cover on the canner will speed up this process.
To sterilize the jars I wash and rinse and place in a 300 degree F over for 10 minutes. I boil the lids in water for ten minutes.
The resulting product from this method is not sweet enough to eat right out of the jar, you will need to add additional sweetener before you serve it or use it in a pie etc.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Video Tour of the Greenhouse May 29, 2009
Video Tour of the Greenhouse May 29, 2009, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.
A rainy day so I decided to make a short video to document the progress in the greenhouse to date.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Garden Bounty Increasing Everyday
Today there was lettuce and radishes and an herb flavoured olive oil made with three kinds of fresh basil and Italian flat leaf parsley. The radish are the last of some seed that I brought home from France several years ago, not very many germinated so I guess they must be at the end of their life span.
Rhubarb Roadside Stand
Maybe I'm reverting to my childhood days and the lemonade stand with lemonade 5 cents a glass. Yesterday I had a thought after I read something on flickr about several people who just have selfserve stands for there surplus flowers, vegetables and baked goods so I thought I would give it a try for the fun of it. Well I didn't have a bad first day, I sold $16.00 worth of Rhubarb. So I guess if I have surplus herbs or vegge this summer I know what I'll do.
My New Waterproof Tilley
I don't know who that old guy is but he's wearing my new Tilley and it's waterproof. Hopefully that will keep my head dry on the Camino next winter. It might also come in handy in Newfoundland this summer, I hope it will be keeping the sun off me at Gros Morne National Park. The Shell Badge was a gift from a fellow Camino Pilgrim, Marliyn Rushton from Halifax. We both walked the Camino for the first time last year and we are both making plans to walk different routes next year. Mine will hopefully start in Le Puy around the first of March.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Atlantic Vision
Starting to get excited about the trip to Newfoundland in July leaving home on July 4th and crossing the straight from North Sidney to Port aux Basque on July 5th . If the schedule doesn't change we are booked to sail on the new Marine Atlantic Ferry, "Atlantic Vision" which just went into service this spring, it is reported to be very luxurious. We have reservations for a cottage in Isle aux Morts for the first night which is only a 15 to 20 minute drive from the ferry landing. Next day we are taking a small passenger ferry to Grand Bruit a small out port up the coast with a population of 57, no roads and no cars. We have a cottage rented there for two nights and I have a feeling it is going to be one of the highlights of the trip. The lady who runs the cottages is going to serve us meals in her home.
Greenhouse things are looking up.
Things in the greenhouse are coming along nicely. It's amazing what a few warm days can do. The peppers have doubbled in size since I put them in their shopping bags and the tomatoes have blossom cluster starting to form, should have the first blossoms in a week or so.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Deviled Egg Tray and carrying case.
I'm a member of a walking group called the Pathfinder and two or three times a year we have a small get together for the members and a pot luck luncheon. I'm always trying to think of something to bring that most people would like including the vegitarians like me. Last December I hosted the Christmas party and as my contribution I had purchases a couple of deli trays one of which was a large deviled egg tray which was gone in no time. That solved the problem I'll bring delived eggs from now on. Our next pot luck is coming up on June 28th and I've been looking for a deviled egg tray online. I found this item at Get Organized:
www.shopgetorganized.com/prodetail~itemNo~26704.asp
It arrived the other day and I just had to give it a try.
Created with fd's Flickr Toys.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Fasolada - Greek Bean Soup
Fasolada - Greek Bean Soup
Ingredients
500gr dried white beans
1 cup Extra Virgin Olive oil
1 Large onion diced
2 carrots sliced
1/2 cup celery finely chopped
3 ripe tomatoes diced
1/2 cup parsley finely chopped
1 tbsp tomato puree (Concentrated paste)
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Soak the beans over night in a bowl full of water to soften them. Drain and place in a sauce pan of water , bring them to the boil twice changing the water each time. Place back in the sauce pan and cover with water for a third time, add the olive oil, the onion, the carrots and the celery. Simmer for an hour and then add the parsley, salt pepper, tomatoes and tomato puree. Simmer for an additional 30 minutes more or until the beans are soft. Enjoy.
Makes a large soup but it freezes really well.
Scones
I not only baked them but it is my own recipe. Second time I've made them and they are quite low fat. I substituted applesauce for half of the fat. It all started because I bought three large tubs of plain fat free yogurt to make yogurt cheese with . Sobeys didn't have the brand I usually get so I chose another brand, I didn't read the label until I was back home and discovered that it had cornstarch in it and you can't make cheese with that because the cornstarch won't let it release the whey. So what to do with three containers of yogurt. I always have SR Flour in the house (Self Rising) and that is what the English use to make Scones. So I made up a recipe and it worked.
1 750ml tub plain yogurt
3-4 tablespoons sugar
4 Table spoons margarine
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
3/4 cup raisins
SR Flour enough to make a stiff batter
Mix all ingredients together adding flour until you have a stiff batter.
Turn out on to a board covered with SR flour and knead adding more flour as required until you have a dough the consistency of tea biscuit or a roll out cookie dough. Roll out to a 1.5 inch thick circle and cut into wedges or cut with a cookie cutter. Bake at 350F until done. 20 to 30 minutes depending on thickness.
By the time I made my second batch I had made applesauce from my Pumpkin Sweet Apples and I substituted half the fat for applesauce and that worked fine too.