Ilex verticillata - Winterberry

Ilex verticillata - Winterberry, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

Ilex verticillata – Winterberry

A deciduous Holly. One of my favorite shrubs. Grows wild in this area the one in the video clip is in my road side garden. Most of my property is natural forest and there is a clump of this shrub growing in the dense part of the wood. I dug this bush up and moved it to the roadside years ago when it was just a small plant. At that time I didn't know that Winterberry was a true Ilex a member of the Holly family so like all hollies it has male and female plants and you need one of each to get the nice red berries. When this plant was almost full brown it started producing a few berries every year, only five or so, which proved it was female and evidently a small amount of pollen was being carried to it either on the wind or by insects. A few years ago I went to a garden center and bought her a mate and ever since then it has produced a load of beautiful berries that stay on the bush almost all winter.

Pound Sweet, Pound Sweeting, Pumpkin Sweeting, Rhode Island Sweet, Round Sweet, Vermont Sweet, Lyman’s Pumpkin Sweet, Sweet Pumpkin, Yankee Apple

Pound Sweet, Pound Sweeting, Pumpkin Sweeting, Rhode Island Sweet, Round Sweet, Vermont Sweet, Lyman’s Pumpkin Sweet, Sweet Pumpkin, Yankee Apple, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

The apple with many different names. I bought mine years ago as a Pumpkin Sweet. What ever you call it, it's a wonderful old heritage apple. Very firms flesh, an excellent storage apple, great in pies or apple sauce. I also eat them fresh off the tree but it wouldn't be to everyones taste, a bit on the hard side.

(A quote from Big Horse Creek Farm's website) “The name for this apple is derived from its large size and yellowish-orange color. It originated in 1800's in the orchards of S. Lyman of Manchester, Connecticut and was first recorded in 1834. It has long been a popular apple in the South sought out for its culinary qualities. It is excellent for baking or canning, but less desirable for fresh eating. Fruit is large to very large with tough, smooth skin with patches of russet, occasionally showing a brownish-red blush. The yellow flesh is firm, crisp, juicy, and very sweet. Ripens October or later. “

What I like about it most is what it does this time of year. It doesn't drop it's fruit on the ground. I've never seen any other apple quite like it. What ever fruit is left on the tree after I've harvested all that I want, stays on the tree all winter. This is a great treat for wildlife, especially birds. After we've had a lot of cold weather the fruit turns brown but it still doesn't fall off the tree. All winter long there are birds in the tree picking at the frozen fruit and in the spring it's the first thing the robins go for as soon as the arrive.

Winter Herb Garden - Parsley and Basil - Last of this years Leeks.

Winter Herb Garden - Parsley and Basil , originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

The outdoor gardening season for 2009 is officially over, the garden beds are cleaned up and ready for winter and I harvested the last of the leeks yesterday. I have three different varieties of garlic planted in my square foot garden frames a new variety that I bought this fall via the Internet from B.C., some of the garlic that I harvested from this years crop and some that was just off the store shelf this fall. They have all been in the ground for over a month now and the only variety to actually come up and start to grow is the supermarket variety. It was only in the ground six days when it broke through the surface and started to grow. Right now it is green and healthy and about six inches tall. I will try to remember to mulch it as soon as the ground freezes. Should be interesting to see how the different varieties prove out next year.

I have got a lot of use out of the light garden that I bought last winter. It was in use from mid January last winter when I started my onion, shallot and leek seedlings through to late spring as I started the various seedlings for the summer garden and now it has been in use since mid September this fall when I planted several pots of Italian Parsley and a mixture of different Basils for kitchen use this fall and winter. They are up and doing nicely I made a pasta sauce the other day and it was so nice to have fresh herbs to use.

Remembrance Day Poppies

In Flanders Fields

by John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Maine Coast Heritage Trust Prize winning photo.

Maine Coast Heritage Trust Prize winning photo. Machiasport area. Mill Pond stroll. With Yurts August 9, 2009, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

I just received this notification that this photo won the Maine Coast Heritage Trust photo contest prize;

Hi Dale:

I am writing to inform you that one of your photos has been chosen as the 2009 MCHT Photo Contest Winner (see attached). Thank you so much for participating in this year’s contest. Your image does an excellent job of capturing the beauty of the Maine coast. As winner of this year’s contest you are entitled to an MCHT Tote bag. Please forward to me your address and I will send it on its way. Again thanks for your participation and support of MCHT.

Sincerely

Jeffrey Romano
Maine Coast Heritage Trust
1 Bowdoin Mill Island, Suite 201
Topsham, ME 04086

I'm pleased to be the winner but I'm not sure if I had any competition. A man from the Heritage trust led a Pathfinders walk in Machiasport on August 9th and he invited any of us who were taking photos on the walk to enter the contest, he also said that as of that date there had not been any entries.

Fall Colour

Maple, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

The fall foliage colour is rapidly disappearing but this maple tree in my neighbor's front yard is still a show stopper. Most of our maples turn a shade of orange or red but whatever species this one is lights up like a light bulb. A beautiful time of year but we all know what is just around the corner, all of the nice colour will be covered with a blanket of white.

Quince Jelly

Quince Jelly, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

It seems that every time I do another preserve I say that is the last one of the season well I think this is really it, I'm almost out of jars.

I've never even tasted Quince jelly before but I've thought about making it for years now. My two flowering quince shrubs always have some fruit on them in the fall but this has been an exceptional year for them, evidently they really liked our very wet summer. I always thought that the growing season here must be too short for the fruit to ripen, it turns yellow but stays hard until it falls off the plant. I discovered while looking on the internet for jelly making instruction that the quince fruit never does get soft, so I was good to go.

The process is simple:

1. Cut the fruit in half and remove the core and seeds, I used a tea spoon which worked well.

2. Put the prepared fruit in a heavy bottom pan and add enough water to cover by one inch.

3. Bring to the boil and reduce heat to simmer for one hour.

4. Take off the heat and mash, I used a hand held blender.

5. Put the mashed quince in a double layer cheesecloth bag and hang over a bowl or container to catch the liquid. I left mine to drain over night.

6. Measure the liquid and return it to a heavy bottomed pan add slightly less than one cup of sugar for each cup of liquid.

7. Bring to a rolling boil and cook until it reaches the jelly stage. You can determine this stage by chilling a spoon full on a cold (one you've kept in the freezer)plate as soon as one of these tests produces firm jelly remove from the heat and skim off the foam.

8. Add to sterile bottles with sterile lids.

Enjoy the resulting jelly which I find a bit tart but a very nice flavour.

Trying out my homemade canned apple pie filling.

Trying out my homemade canned apple pie filling., originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

Well I just had to try out the canned apple pie filling to see what it was like. I used a deep pie dish so I was able to use a whole liter jar of the canned pie filling in the one pie. When I emptied the jar into the pastry I was concerned about the amount of liquid and thought it was either likely to boil over in the oven or produce a very sloppy pie. I'm please to say that neither happened. I'm not quite sure where it all went but the finished product was a very normal Apple Pie and it didn't make a mess in the oven. All in all I'm very pleased and I certainly will make more of this in the future, maybe even later this fall. It sure takes a lot of the time consuming work out of making an apple pie, no peeling, cutting, seasoning etc.

Pumpkin Sweet Apple Harvest and Apple Pie Filling Canning

Pumpkin Sweet Apple Harvest and Apple Pie Filling Canning, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

It seems to be getting colder early this year and I've started to think that my apples might freeze before I get them picked, so today I got my long handles picker out and harvested four shopping bags full of my Pumpkin Sweet Apples.

They are an amazing apple green when ripe just like Granny Smith and a great old heritage apple with good storage qualities. Best used as a cooking apple I love them baked, in pies or apple sauce. I've never tried canning them before so this year I though I would can some pie filling and apple sauce. Today I canned five quart jars of Apple Pie Filling.

This also gave me an opportunity to use my new Starfrit Apple Peeler and slicer/corer, both worked very well and only cost $11.50. The slicer only makes eight sections from each apple and I thought they were too thick for pies so I cut each section into two pieces. To keep the apple sections from turning brown before I could can them I put them in a solution of one gallon of water with two tablespoons each of vinegar and salt.

Next I made a thick syrup by cooking until thickened a mixture of 4 ½ cups sugar, 1 cup cornstarch, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon nutmeg, 1 teaspoon salt, 10 cups water and 3 tablespoons lemon juice. The rest was easy pack the jars full of sliced apples, cover with the syrup, finger tighten jar lids and process in a boiling water bath for 30 minutes after the water returns to a full boil.

The syrup is delicious I hope it makes a good pie.

Some Pumpkin Sweet Info:

Pumpkin Sweet (Pound Sweet, Pound Sweeting, Pumpkin Sweeting, Rhode Island Sweet, Round Sweet, Vermont Sweet, Lyman’s Pumpkin Sweet, Sweet Pumpkin, Yankee Apple) - The name for this apple is derived from its large size and yellowish-orange color. It originated in 1800's in the orchards of S. Lyman of Manchester, Connecticut and was first recorded in 1834. It has long been a popular apple in the South sought out for its culinary qualities. It is excellent for baking or canning, but less desirable for fresh eating. Fruit is large to very large with tough, smooth skin with patches of russet, occasionally showing a brownish-red blush. The yellow flesh is firm, crisp, juicy, and very sweet. Ripens October or later.(Quoted from Big Horse Creek Farm website.


1. The finished product, 2. The finished product, 3. The corer/slicer, 4. The corer/slicer, 5. In a vinegar and salt bath to stop browning, 6. The Starfrit peeler, 7. The Starfrit peeler, 8. The harvest, 9. Pumpkinsweet Apples on the tree, 10. Long handled picker in action., 11. Long handled picker in action., 12. Harvest

Created with fd's Flickr Toys

The Fruits of Autumn 2009

The Fruits of Autumn 2009, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

One of the things that I like most about this time of year along with all of the autumn colour is the bounty of fruit that is available for wild life that are preparing for winter. A walk around my garden this morning with my camera revealed that mother nature has done a very good job this year. In this collage there are photos of Bar Berry, Bittersweet, Quince, Pumpkin Sweet Apples, Rose Hips and Fire Thorn.

Quince is so bitter that I'm not sure if anything actually eats it. The pumpkin sweet apple is an old heritage variety and I will be harvesting some soon for canning, great in apple pies. The interesting thing about this apple though is that it never falls off the tree. There will still be some of this years brown fruit next spring when it blooms again. It is much appreciated by the early returning spring birds and last year one lonely robin over wintered in my garden and was seen almost every day picking on the frozen apples.

Garlic planted six days ago is up and growing already !!

Garlic planted six days ago is up and growing already !!, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

I'm amazed the garlic that I planted in my new square foot garden project, only six days ago, is up and growing this morning. It was fresh new garlic not even sprouted when I planted it. The weather has been warm with a couple of rainy days since it was planted so I guess it isn't wasting any time getting established before winter sets in. That's a good thing because if it sets good roots before freeze-up it will stand a much better chance of staying in the soil rather than being push up out of the ground by the frost. I will have to remember to mulch it well after the ground freezes.

Flickr Galleries

Beziers - Friday Market, originally uploaded by Charles G Thompson/100 Miles.

Recently I discovered a new Flickr feature called Galleries . With this feature you can create a gallery of up to 18 photos from other unrestricted Flickr photos on the topic of your choice. So I've been having fun creating Galleries relating to my planned trip to France this coming winter.

I plan to spend February in Beziers and the surrounding area:

Beziers Gallery

I love the fresh markets, flower markets and flea markets in France.

Markets of Beziers Gallery

The Canal Du Midi which connects the Atlantic and the Mediterranean was designed and built by a man from Beziers and goes through Beziers and I plan to do some practice hiking along the Canal.

The Canal du Midi Gallery

Starting March first I hope to start walking the Camino route from Le Puy en Velay to Saint Jean Pied de Port on the French - Spanish border.

The Le Puy Camino Gallery

As you can see some very beautiful photos, hope I'm able to take some that are as good.

The square foot garden project.

The square foot garden project., originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

First crops planted in my Square foot Garden Project. The Garlic the I ordered from Salt Spring Island Seeds arrived and I planted it along with some garlic that I had in the kitchen. This will give me a chance to compare the results from the expensive seed garlic to the regular store bought garlic.

Before I planted the garlic I added a generous amount of Seafood Compost to each square foot cell and worked it into the soil. The use of Seafood Compost seemed very appropriate as the variety of Garlic that I had selected from Salt Spring Island Seeds is called Fish Lake # 3. The Fish Lake cloves are much larger then the store bought variety so I allowed them more room in the square foot cell. Each head of Fish Lake only had four cloves though which was a bit disappointing, considering the price including shipping was $13.00 for two heads. The cloves should have a good chance to set roots and get established before the ground freezes in late November or early December.

Last of the cucumbers pickled and the last of the tomatoes canned.

Last of the cucumbers pickled and the last of the tomatoes canned. , originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

This years canning is almost finished just a couple more things to do the cranberries and the apples both of which wont be ready to pick until we have a a few frosts in early October.

The grow bag garden has been quite successful especially in my little greenhouse. I only had two hybrid greenhouse cucumber plants and they produced enough cucumbers to make three batches of pickles, one batch of dill and two batches of sweet bread and butter, and that is besides having a steady supply of cucumbers for salads and sandwiches since mid July. There were six tomato plants in the greenhouse and they did very well, mid August before I started getting ripe ones but there has been a good supply since then and I have four quarts canned for pasta sauces this winter. I had another dozen plants in grow bags in the garden but after the five weeks of rain in late June and all of July they were hit by a blight and died along with my potato plants. I didn't get any tomatoes off them and potato harvest was very small, but tasty.

The square foot garden project.

The square foot garden project., originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

I filled two more frames with compost from the grow bag garden and it took four of the eighty five liter bags to fill each one, so I should have enough to fill all six frames. The rest of the grow bags are still in use in the greenhouse and the small garden in front of the house so I will have to wait until the crops are finished growing or hit with frost before I can fill the other frames.

Next I set a dozen fence posts and put up the rabbit fence. I bought fifty feet of fence and had just enough with only a short piece left over. I decided not to put a gate into the garden, I figured that would just create a place where they could squeeze through, instead I'm going to make a stile out of cinder blocks on both sides of the fence. Hopefully rabbits aren't clever enough to figure out how to use a stile.

The square foot garden project.

The square foot garden project., originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

The day began with a visit to the hardware store to buy more nails so I could finish the last raised bed frame. After building the frame it was on to the 12 X 12 foot site where I hoped to be able to put all six frames. As I cleared the grow bags and removed the black plastic mulch from the area it became clear that if I put all six frames in this area it will be over crowded and very difficult to work around, so I decided to put only four frames in this area. The other two will be placed in another area where I already have a large raised bed. Since this new area will be the only area with a fence to keep the rabbits out I will need to remember to grow crops that the rabbits don't like in the two beds that will be outside the fence. This year the rabbits didn't bother the onions, tomatoes, potatoes and squash so I should be able to fill those beds with these crops.

I also harvested a nice crop of potatoes and squash from the containers and grow bags.

After I removed the plastic I spent a couple of hours with a garden spade tuning the soil over in the bed because it had become quite compacted from walking on it this summer. I was pleased to see that the sod that I had turned over in late spring had composted nicely.

I was able to fill one of the frames with the compost from the potato containers and one grow bag. I have nineteen grow bags left each containing eighty five liters of compost not sure if that is enough to fill the three remaining frames or not.

I divided the filled frame with cedar laths that I bought for this purpose. My square foot garden isn't divided into square feet however, for a couple of reasons, the inside dimensions of the frame ended up being 46 X 46 inches and also the width of the dividers take away from the growing space. Each section is 10.5 inches square.

The square foot garden project.

The square foot garden project., originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

My square foot garden project began last spring when I turned the sod over on a 12 foot square area of the back lawn. I then covered this area with black plastic mulch and gardened on top of this with grow bags for this summer. Today phase two of the project began with the arrival of the lumber to build six four foot square raised planters with and also the posts and fifty feet of fence to help keep the rabbits out.

I built the first planter in the driveway where I had the lumber dropped and quickly discovered when it came time to move it to the back garden that assembled they are too heavy for me to carry comfortably. So I carried all of the building supplies out to the back garden and continued the construction out there. Fortunately I ran out of nails about the same time that I ran out of energy. I got five of the six planters built and will finish the other one as soon as I get some more nails.

I ordered garlic yesterday so I need to have one of these planters ready to use as soon as it arrives so it will have a chance to get rooted this fall.

Camino Friends Meeting Lincoln, N.B. September 12, 2009

Camino Friends Meeting Lincoln, N.B. September 12, 2009, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

I attended the annual meeting of the Maritime Chapter of the Canadian Company of the Pilgrims of the Camino, this past Saturday. It was great to get together with people who have already experienced the Camino as wells as those who are making plans for a future Pilgrimage. Our special guest was Peter Coffman and his wife Diane who walked the Camino with the late Oliver Schroer and his wife Elena in 2004. Peter gave a beautiful presentation of that walk illustrated with his slides and the music that Oliver recorded along the way in the Churches of the Camino. We also had presentations from several of our members who walked the Camino in the past year and of course like any good maritime gathering we had a fabulous pot luck buffet luncheon.

Peter Coffman

Oliver Schroer

Onions, Shallots and Garlic harvested and laid out to dry.

Onions, Shallots and Garlic harvested and laid out to dry., originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

I'm so pleased with the success that I've had this year growing Onions, Shallots and Garlic. I have never been able to grow onions of any size before and I've tried many times. This year a friend who is a master gardener told me not to plant onion sets but to start my onions from seed in the house . He recommended starting them in February, I got a little carried away and started them under lights in mid January and the result has been amazing. I harvested them all this morning and laid them out on my front deck to dry in the sun. There is a good crop of Shallots too also grown from seed and some small garlic grown from garlic cloves. I didn't plant the garlic until late spring and I think they would be larger if I planted them in the fall so that is my plan for this year.

1. Garlic, 2. Onion Cortland, 3. Onion Greek Salad, 4. Shallots Ambition

Created with fd's Flickr Toys