Let The Harvest Begin

Wow. I just experienced the best Labor Day Weekend of my life, weatherwise. We here in the Pleasant Valley were treated to 70-degree temps and sunny skies for three straight days. It even got down into the thirties on two nights, making for glorious sleeping weather. No humidity, gentle breezes. Absolutely perfect.

And right on schedule, it's time to start processing the goodies we get from the garden. We've been collecting groundfall apples from our two trees for weeks now, and making applesauce. Since we use no chemicals on our trees, we eat the skins, so processing the fruit is simple: cut apples into chunks off the core, drop in a crockpot with a bit of water, secure the lid, turn on "high," and come back in a few hours. When the apples are bubbly, we shut the crockpot off and remove the crockery insert to cool. Once cooled, we use an immersion "stick" blender to puree the fruits and then freeze the applesauce as is--no sugar or spices--for future use. It's quite delicious. Way more flavor than store-bought applesauce, and way better for you.

While we've been collecting apples for some time now, the grapes near the garden shed have just ripened. Every year our yield is different and this year we will break a record. Maybe it was all the rain we had this season, but we've got grapes everywhere. In years past I've caught young black bears snacking on the grapes in broad daylight. So far we've picked 11 pounds, with many more clusters still on vines. What do we do with the grapes? They aren't the "table" variety, so they are sour, but boy are they tasty. When life gives you grapes--make grape juice! Here's what I do.

I pick enough grapes to fill my stockpot--between four and seven pounds. After plucking the grapes from their stems, I add a little water and mash them down with a potato masher and set them to boil. Once boiling, I lower the heat, cover, and let simmer 15 minutes. Later, when the mushy grape mixture is cooled, I pour it all into my antique cone food mill and using a wooden pestal, extract all the juice and pulpy goodness while leaving the seeds and skins behind. Then I skim the bitter foam from the pot of juice and freeze the concentrate in square freezer containers. The concentrate can be sweetened and diluted 1:1 for the best-tasting grape juice you've ever had.

Next time I'll tell you about this wonderful peach/hot pepper marmalade recipe I came up with. I'd like to get it up on food.com so I can easily share the recipe.