Apple Pressing Partnership

 

One benefit of Long Term partnerships—getting the work done efficiently.

                Last week, I roamed the neighborhood with my fruit picker, finding early apples to press for cider. I filled the larger laundry basket, then the heat wave settled in and I ignored them for several days.  By Saturday, there was a line of ants heading across the dining room floor and something had to be done. “Let’s get it over with before it gets hotter,” Mark sighed. I agreed. We divided jobs without discussion.

                Mark: prep the press. He hauled it out of the greenhouse and turned on the hose to rinse it off, then took it apart and gave a couple of pieces a good cleaning. He found the bowl to catch the juice.

                Charlyn: prep the chopping. I found the cuisinart, the fruit cutting board, and the bowl for the choppings. I hauled the apples out of the dining room and hunted down the bucket for the compost. After plugging everything in, I began chopping.

                Mark: is in charge of pressing. It is more fun, but it also requires more leverage to press all of the juice out. He can stand on the mounting board and crank down much better than I can. More weight.

                Charlyn: is in charge of apple prep. I am much faster at chopping and slicing without cutting my fingers, even when there is apple juice everywhere. I have better knife skills and can eliminate more worms, too.

                Mark: does compost delivery and outdoor clean up after the pressing. As compost in general is his area, he knows which ring will like a nice boost of apple moisture to move things along. He also feeds the chickens some of the mash. He hoses off the table and rakes up any big piles of residue.

                Charlyn: does the canning. As soon as the pressing is done, I heave the big pot of juice onto the stove to boil, then pour it into quart jars and can it. Later, I tuck it onto the shelves in the basement.

                We are pretty good at this. And, somewhere in the process, when everything is set up and cranking along, Mark will observe: This wasn’t as bad as I remembered. And the final product is always better.  Partnership.

A week in Zucchini

 

It is that time of year, when the number of zucchini in the dining room exceeds the number of dinners in the week.  To help us all out of the dilemma, we are eating at least one a day—and I will post the recipe for each. If you find yourself needing a zucchini to try one of the recipes, I think we can help you out. Just ask. Or guard your doorstep….

Thursday… Zucchini, Indian style:

This is tasty, but  improved with flatbread and raita, along with a peach chutney.  It also uses up the tiny potatoes that I harvested, which is preferable than letting them shrivel and die in the bottom of the storage crate.

1 onion, chopped

1 zucchini, chopped

2-3 medium potatoes (or a lot of very small ones), chopped

A handful of raisins

Any other veg on hand

1-2 half pints of roasted tomatoes from the basement—or 2-4 large tomatoes from the garden

 

Drop into the big soup pot or cast iron pan and cook, slowly, in a bit of olive oil.

 

Meanwhile, in a small pan, pour oil, two cloves of chopped garlic, 2T ginger, 1t cinnamon, 1t cumin seed, and 1t of coriander seed, and cook for a few moments. Add to the stew.

 

Friday….Seedy Zucchini Cake, because we are having a meeting this evening. This is from Snacking Cakes.

 

2T of poppy, millet, and flax seed (can change!)

Zest of a lemon

¾ cup of sugar

2 eggs

¾ cup of oil

1t cinnamon, 3/4 t salt, 1t BP, ½ t BS

1 cup of white flour

½ cup of whole wheat flour

2 ¼ cups of shredded zucchini

 

Mix, use a square brownie pan or 8 inch round springform pan. 350 oven.

 

Saturday: Mark likes zucchini bread with peanut butter for breakfast and we just picked blueberries.

1.5 c white flour

1.5 c whole wheat flour

1/2 BS

1.5 t salt

2 t cinnamon

1 t nutmeg

1/2 t cloves

Mix dry ingredients

1/2 c milk

2 eggs

1/2 c oil

1/2 c sugar

2 c shredded zucchini

1.5 c blueberries

mix wet and add to dry. 2 loaves, 350 degree oven.

Sunday:  The classic summer dinner-- zucchini, tomatoes, onion, and basil tossed over pasta. Never fails.

 

 

 

 

 

Lammas and the potatoes

 

Lammastide is the time of early harvest, traditionally grains, but, here, potatoes. I don’t have enough land to grow enough wheat and oats to feed us, or the technology to harvest and separate out the grain, but I can produce potatoes. And, if I put them in the ground early enough, they need less water and are ready to give up their beds to other crops in early August.  The pandemic, plus a seed potato shortage, has made this a bit more challenging this year, but I pulled them on Monday, August Second, Lammastide.

This year, I put in a half bed of kennebucks, a large white potato that is a solid producer. They grew alongside leeks and carrots to create a “soup bed”; the potato leaves, despite my best efforts,  overwhelmed the celery before I could really get going. Next year. They came out—22 pounds—last week and were quickly replaced by the direct seeded fall crops. Arugula. Watermelon radish. Tat Soi. Lettuce.  If last year is ever an indication, these greens will keep producing until Winter Solstice.  They are already up.

This morning, I tackled the full bed, planted a couple of weeks later. Even with the water turned off for two weeks, a few vines were still lush. I tried working around them, but gave up. Two rows of Yukon Gold (17 pounds, medium sized tubers) and two rows of Blue (16 pounds, not as lovely as some other years) appeared as I expected, in terms of size and production. But, then, I had run a small row of huckleberries down the middle of the bed and they were….amazing. Huge! They beat out the Kennebecks, which are traditionally the largest potato. Clear and clean. Beautiful tubers. Deep purple outside, golden inside, and, I remember from last fall, yummy all the way through. 22 pounds from less than four. The bed emptied pretty quickly. I use my hands first, finding about 70 percent of the tubers while the compost I dumped on the straw mulch last week works its way into the bed. Then I take the pitchfork, with bare feet, and gently dig up the rest. This allows me to prep the bed for the next fall crop while harvesting the spring planting. Any big chunks of straw are set to the side, to be laid back on the bed later.

Once everything was out, I planted two rows of potatoes for a late fall harvest. It’s not as big, but it works! Then the hoses went back down, followed by the straw mulch. The other side of the bed will be filled with fall starts next week—kale and mustard, first, then the broccoli and fennel and cabbage. Depending on the fall, we will have a late harvest of potatoes and greens. Meanwhile, harvest begins.

Apple collection on Tuesday….

               

Downtown

 

                Why do some downtowns thrive, while others die? What can we do to improve our own downtown, so that it remains vibrant and healthy? Mark and I tossed these questions back and forth as we drove across the country in July, wandering through desolate and deserted places, followed by booming towns with the latest building codes.  We formulated and tested theories and this is what we saw.

A functional downtown has:

1.       A solid economic base. This is the most important aspect of a thriving downtown. Towns that had at least two of the following were thriving: a county seat, a college or university, a hospital, or manufacturing with middle class wages. If there is no solid economic base, there is nothing.

2.       A small block grid makes it easy to negotiate downtown on foot or in a car.

3.       Fifty percent old buildings help by lending charm and variety.

4.       Slow moving traffic.

5.       Not a tourist economy—practical businesses.

6.       A mixture of uses—food, clothing, drugstore, offices. There has to be a reason to go downtown on a Tuesday afternoon, not just to buy a tomato on Saturday.

7.       Far enough away from a big city that it cannot pull economic development out of town.

 

So, towns can build bioswales on streets were every business is empty (Tucumcari) and nothing will change. We can make our downtown pretty, and people will come down for a summer afternoon, but that won’t help keep businesses alive. Or we can have a vibrant economic base, not based on the interstate, and naturally support our downtown.