Apple harvest time!

We have two apple trees in our backyard, and they typically bear fruit every other year. I wish the trees were on alternate years, but unfortunately all the bounty arrives at once!

Often we have more apples than we can use, and two years ago I am ashamed to admit that many of the apples went rotten, because we didn't get ourselves organized to do anything with them. (This is why this post is on my "One Year (or Five Years) to an Organized Life" blog!)

My parents handed down a large homemade food dryer several years ago, and we have dried apples in the past. However, it's powered by a lightbulb (and consequently takes a couple of days to dry the fruit), has to stay in the backyard because of its bulk, and has screens with wooden frames (that are difficult to wash). As a result, it's cumbersome to dry food. I decided that if I were really to actively dry fruit this year, I needed to invest in a more user-friendly food dryer. This is what I ended up with:

Nesco food dehydrator

I bought it at Fred Meyer--it was on sale for $45, and I had an additional 10% off coupon...so it was about $40. I put it to work immediately last night. The apples were nearly done by the time I went to bed, with an additional hour this morning to finish them off. SOOOOO easy! I think I'm going to have fun with it!

To prepare the apples, I used my trust apple peeler/corer/slicer, which I bought several years ago. It only comes out of the cupboard when we have a lot of apples. I LOVE this thing. It makes the process so much easier and faster.

The one downside to the food dehydrator is that it doesn't take the quantity that the homemade one does (although I could purchase more trays to do more fruit at once). After filling the dryer, I kept coring/peeling/slicing and made a pot of homemade applesauce.

I followed Mark Bittman's recipe (from my iPhone app of How to Cook Everything!), which consisted of cut apples in a pot with 1/2 inch of water and a sprinkling of salt. Then he offers suggestions for additional ingredients. I added peeled fresh ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, and a couple of spoons of brown sugar. It turned out great, and I won't be surprised if it's gone by Friday. Next time I will make more.

My little gardeners

This weekend was a rare treat: we had nothing at all scheduled for Saturday and Sunday. From now through mid-May, we have commitments every single weekend. Of course, I always have much greater aspirations than I actually get accomplished...but oh well. A mother's (and organizer's) work is never done!

I spent most of the day cleaning the kitchen and working in the garden. I finally deadheaded the roses (only a month late) and weeded around them--our apple trees seem to be shooting out volunteers. Then I started in on the raised beds.

Since we just put them in last year and purchased high-quality soil and mulch to fill them, the weeds were pretty easy to pull out (helped by our wet spring, too). The kids really got into the act as well!


The biggest challenge was getting him to keep the dirt within the boxes! But he enjoyed digging around with his shovel. Kieran helped me by using the claw to loosen the dirt, and I pulled out the weeds.

Look at all those dandelions!! It's because we refuse to use herbicide on our lawn...we kind of let it grow wild. But it definitely could use a good mow, and some more grass seed.

Kieran brought out his scarecrow from storage. At this point, we're only scaring the crows away from some chives and herbs that wintered over--and the strawberries seem to have popped up again. Last year we only had a couple of tiny strawberries...wonder if they'll do better this year?

I really want to plant some organic blueberries and raspberries--anyone know where I could get ahold of those?

It's a good thing we tackled the beds yesterday, because it's raining today. I did go buy some lettuce and snap pea starts today, so we can start our planting when the rain stops! Next tomatoes and other veggies--the starts aren't available yet, but we might try out some seeds.

Last year we tried growing corn, and it looked gorgeous for awhile, but then it all died. I think it needs a huge amount of water. And of course, we continue to be complete zucchini failures. Neither we nor my parents are able to grow zucchini effectively.

Bounty in the Garden!

I'm posting this in my organizing blog because it's the first year in eons that we have really been organized about our vegetable garden. Years ago, we actually dug out a patch of grass to put in a garden, but ever since that peak year, it's never been quite what we intended.

This year Mike built raised beds and purchased high-quality soil and compost, and it has made a tremendous difference in our harvest. We also planted a wide variety of organic vegetable starts and seeds. In addition, Kieran has been engaged and helped to put in a number of the plants and scatter seeds. It's been fun to see how well our plants have done this year. Take a look:


We planted TONS of tomatoes, since that's my favorite garden-fresh vegetable. So far, only the cherry tomatoes are riping...but I see a lot of tomatoes in our future!

The corn "hatching," as Kieran put it...

Lovely lettuce! We won't have to buy lettuce for quite some time at the rate it's growing...

Mint and rosemary contained in a pot between the two raised beds

An eggplant with blossoms

Mike and I laugh about the fact that we've NEVER been able to grow zucchini! Well, this year we did it, at last!

And some nice yellow squash coming in as well...

Tabbouleh, anyone?

A little cucumber coming in...

A baby green pepper:

We've never tried to grow corn before, so we'll see how it turns out...it sure looks pretty though!

Tomatilloes:

Kieran's scarecrow keeping away the crows?

While I was finishing up the boys' room today, Mike was outside in the glaring heat fixing the back gate. The gate had been falling apart because of rotting wood, and a winter storm really whipped the bejeesus out of it. There was basically nothing left of it. Mike took the scraps and used some new hardware and wood to reinforce the gate. My handy husband! (He was not taught how to do this kind of thing when growing up, so these are wonderful accomplishments for him!)