Alaskan Apples - What to do with them!

 

 Crab apples being prepped for the juicer above, and apple pieces in the juicer below.

 

Im my previous post I talked about some of the great varieties of apple that wil thrive in Alaska and preserving the harvesting heritage.  Now we're going to talk about some of the great things you can do with these apples!  Crabapple jelly is by far one of the favorite uses of crabapples here at Wicked Raven.  The jelly is a clear rosy color and has enough natural pectin that none has to be added and it still makes a "stacking" jam!  That means that you can stack it up on whatever you're making and it stays there!  It makes a great gift jelly in a pretty jar with a bread mix (Ill help you with that one in a later post).

 

The juicing process takes just about all day with a stove top juicer and Im sure you could speed it up somehow but I like having the process going on in the kitchen while I sew, clean, prep menus, or any number of other things that two job hockey mom  hobby farmers never seem to catch up on.  It also makes your house smell great!  Whats not to love.

 

This batch of apples (about 3 gallons whole) produced about 16 cups of juice and I used all but four of that to make jelly.  The other four cups we added one cup of sugar (you could probably use less or use liquid stevia too), chilled it for about two hours and the kids drank it with dinner!  So good and so full of natural vitamins.

 

Best Crabapple Jelly

 

4 Cups Crabapple juice

4 Cups Sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon (optional)

 

Using a large saucepot, bring all ingredients to a boil over high heat stirring constantly.  Cook to gelling point (when you drip some on the spoon rest, then tip the rest it moves slowly or not at all).  Skim foam if necessary and ladle into hot jars leaving 1/4 inch of space.  Place two-piece caps on and process in a hot water bath for ten minutes or use the quick turn method to seal.  (see below for directions)

 

Starting the Crabapple Jelly

The quick turn method to seal jars is a simple way to seal your jelly without a water bath.  You cannot use this method for everything - I only use this for jelly.

 

Once your hot jelly is in the hot jars, adjust the two piece caps and tighten them down.  Turn the closed jars upside down and set your timer for five minutes. 

When the five minutes is up turn the jars right side up using a quick turn or flip.

Let jars sit and you will soon begin to hear them seal - some go fast and some go slow but I have never had a jar not seal unless I had a glob of jelly on the rim that I missed wiping off!  Good eating!

This is a great way to keep your jars hot while your product finishes.  Put the clean jars in the oven on warm while you finish the product and you won't have to worry about them being hot enough!

Blessed Be and Happy Harvest Time!

 

Tune in to the next post for Easy Spiced Apples!

 

Apples from Alaska!

This post also falls under gardening with your kids!  The apples below are on a tree at Snowfire Gardens (see my links for more information) and we have so much fun every year rounding up all the kids (even the grown ones) and doing harvest at Nana and Boopah's house (or Gramma and Grandpa as you may call yours)!

This tree is a Carroll apple and it produced that whole blue bushel tub full of apples - good eating apples too! Even in this crappy weather we had all summer here in Alaska the orchard had a banner year. My parents do have a ten foot tall fence to keep out the moose riff raff so their trees dont get trimmed the way ours at Wicked Raven do. There are a total of four families and includes six grand kids - four boys and two girls who come together at least one day a year and do a family harvest day at Snowfire. It is a great family bonding time as well as teaching too. This year besides apples we dug potatoes, dahlia bulbs, and harvested two kinds of Kale.

 Above Nana, Raeley and Devin harvest two kinds of potatoes, below, before the wash cycle!

With all the rain we had here in the Matanuska Valley the potatoes were a little harder to harvest - soil was very wet and heavy!  Lucky we have some strong youngsters (and energetic adults) to help!  Two of the kids didn't get to come to harvest day this year and boy were they salty pretzles about it!  The only saving grace was that we chose a sunny day - one of very few we had all summer!

 

The above is Kim picking from an apple-crab tree and we got another bushel from this tree.  This is a great way to teach the kids where their food comes from, how to take care of it (you absolutely cannot just drop apples into a bucket), and how long some things take to grow.  This orchard has been growing for about 12 years, and there are about 15 varieties of apple and apple crab trees.  Check the web site in the summer at www.snowfiregardens.com for garden tour schedule if you would like to see the orchards and gardens.  Its worth it!

Here at Wicked Raven Farm we have 7 varieties of apple and crabapple trees.  We have had only one tree produce thus far, however our orchard is only about three years old and regularly gets trimmed by a momma moose who comes with her calf each year.  We also have two varieties of grapes (yes they will grow here) and we have 3 varieties of cherry trees and we had enough for a pie last year!

Tune in to the next blog to see some of the fun things we do with apples!  Yum!

Here comes the Sun-Gold

We love SunGold!  The round yellow orbs in top picture are ripe Sungold tomatoes mixed in with Brandy Boy (the wrinkly ones - its not market pretty but it is so so tasty - one for another blog).  They are also mixed with a few red hybrid grape tomatoes as well.  We grew Sungold for the first time last year as a trial - Reeds choice.  They are a winner!  We call them tomato candy.  They are so sweet, but still have such tomato flavor.  We have used them for all kinds of recipes, (see salsa recipe below) but we are lucky if they make it into the house (they get eaten on the way).  As you can tell by the bottom two pictures, they are a very indeterminate plant and the tomatoes grow like grapes on the vines.  These have had the leaves thinned out so any sun we do get will ripen tomatoes and not produce leaves!  The bowl on the top picture is the 5th of its kind filled mostly with Sun Gold for this growing season, and if the Goddess is good to me that is only about one tenth of what are on the vine in the greenhouse.  It just has to not get 20 below in the next month and we will be able to harvest all.  All of these pictures were taken today so you can see that we are still rockin in the greenhouse with the tomatoes.

Sun Gold tomatoes are a treat to grow - very low maintenance, they expect to be watered plenty but they dont fuss if they dont get that.  They arent sensitive to wide temperature changes like some of the other plants, even to as low as 36 degrees and as high as 90.  They dont mind a sweaty greenhouse and they dont mildew easily.  They seem very non-susceptible to blights and mildews or other tomato diseases and white flies dont bother them at all.  The worst quality I have to name about these plants is that they get so tall and lanky and produce at the top that I have to use a ladder often to pick them.

If you leave them on the vine for too long they will split, but I have had a vine of them break off and they ripened in my bowl in the window beautifully!  I have 4 Sun Gold plants in my mix. They freeze beautifully and they can without losing all of their color. Pick early and often and enjoy!

Sun Gold Salsa

12 oz. Ripe Sun Gold Tomatoes cut in fourths (or however many you want to use)
1/2 onion diced finely
1 orange and 1 yellow pepper diced finely
1 small bunch cilantro finely chopped
1 tabasco pepper (if you like hot - leave out if not) pureed
1 small bunch fresh parsley finely chopped
pinch of salt

If you dont have a tabasco pepper, use a dash of Franks or Tabasco sauce.

Mix all together in a non metal bowl and enjoy with whatever you like salsa with.  We have made this into Salmon dip by adding 1 can salmon and 8oz. creme cheese!  Yum!

A Childs Garden

A Childs (Reeds') Garden - This is an easy way for your children to have their "own" gardens and really take ownership of the growing world around.  These particular plots belong to my 12 year old son who has been gardening for years but only on his "own" for about three.  We used non treated wood that was left from a dock building project from years ago.  2x6" pieces and these are 6 feet long.  This make a great sized space since it doesnt have to be walked in very often at all, to pick the produce or to keep up with weeding.  The idea for this came from the book "Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholemew.  My son has perused the book at length and while I wont swear he has read it, he has gleaned a lot from it and I have as well.  This system does produce more goods than the row by row gardening method by far.  Reed has had much better success especially with carrots, radishes and beets using this method than I have using row by row methods. 

We used 3" screws to hold our wood pieces together, and we did dig out the original dirt and replace it with good garden soil.  As we are in the Millers Reach Burn area we have been left with heavy clay and sand in layers instead of soil so our remediation is necessary.  If you are starting with good soil it would not be necessary except to have a clean slate and fairly weed free to start, which I highly reccommend for childrens plots.

Reed also chooses his own seed (great winter time activity together), and I help him with the ordering.  We have tried some great things like Daikon Radish (success) and eggplant (fail) but it has really given him a good start towards knowing what we can and cant grow and how far we might be able to test the limits of our growing area (solid zone 2).

For one of his garden plots he also chose raspberries and strawberries from a local grower (so we know they are hardy) and he has had such success with those that next season we will have to separate the strawberries out - both types have outgrown the plot.

In the background of the top photo you can also see what looks like two sticks in a hole - that is actually Reeds apple tree - a Minnesota 1747 in its second year here at Wicked Raven.  Reed was really excited to have an apple tree of his own and we are excited to see how it will do with apples on it (maybe next year). 

There are so many opportunities to grow with your kids and it really is very simple.  Just begin!

Blessed Be!

 We decided this year to add two more of the raised beds (seen above) in Reed's garden area.  They have done so well that we are considering letting the big garden (seen in the background below) go back to meadow and just using the raised beds and the huglekulture areas.  Nothing grows quite as well out there as in the raised beds that Reed makes.  These new ones will be all ready for planting next season!

Above you can see the boys working hard (Reed and his friend) to get the turf out of the areas where the raised beds will live.  In the already established beds you can see two types of cabbage and kohlrabi in the one on the left and raspberries in the one on the right.  Those raspberries will be moved to a huglekulture bed as soon as it is ready and will make room for Reed to plant more carrots, celery, parsley and other yummy veggies.  We have already moved the strawberries out into  a Hugelkulture bed - they simply outgrew the space.

The turf comes out of the raised bed area and goes right over to the Huglekulture bed area to go onto a new huglekulture bed for the raspberries.  We left enough room between the raised beds to mow with the riding mower so that makes it much easier to take care of and keeps the pests away too.  Raised bed building is a great way to get the kids involved and outdoors as well as teaching them how to grow great things - including themselves!