-
Peaches;When you have extra.
What else to do besides can them? If you have already bottled all the peaches you could ever want. You gave away as many as you could and you still have more. What would you do with the rest of the peaches before they go bad? Try freezing them! They are great in smoothies or baked goods. You could even use them for jam later. I recommend putting some lemon juice on them first to keep the color nice. I like to fill a bowl with water and a tablespoon of lemon juice that I drop slices in as I cut them. I just pull them out when I have…
-
Bringing forth good fruit
My grandma’s orchard has five apple trees, but I normally only think of four of them. The fifth has not been producing very well in the five years we have been here. It puts on apples but not very many and they got wormy and soft really early. I was ready to cut this tree down. Luckily my husband is more considerate of my grandparent’s feelings. My grandma loves every plant in her yard. And it is still her property, we are just trying to help her take care of it. So he endorsed just pruning it well and watching to see what happened. Which we did. Sadly this tree…
-
About me
My grandparents on my mom’s side have an acre of land. In the front yard they have a fruit orchard with about 25 fruit trees. They have all kinds of fruit: apples, peaches, plums, pears, apricots, cherries and an almond tree. In the back yard is a very large vegetable garden. They also have grapes, as well as two types of raspberries, black and red. Growing up I spent a lot of time at my grandparents house, especially in the yard. When they had a bumper crop of something my mom, aunt, and grandma would all work together to get the fruit preserved. We would go to grandma’s house early…
-
Reviving Raspberries
This raspberry patch has given me a lot of grief. When we moved in over half of the patch was barely even producing. There was grass growing throughout, and most of the stalks were less than 3′ tall. In my online research I learned how to prune or plant raspberries but I didn’t find anything about this particular issue. So I thought I would share my experience so far. We thought about taking everything out and starting with a new variety. But my grandparents always talk about how they got half of the starts from my grandma’s sister Aunt Ann. The other half they got from Bear Lake area which…
-
Pear Fruit Leather
If you have three pear trees you end up with a lot of pears. I needed a way to use up a lot of pears at once. Our family’s favorite way to eat pears, besides fresh, is fruit leather. I pack it in lunches and share it with friends. It is so great we eat it like it’s candy. Except I feel much better about giving my kids homemade fruit leather instead of candy. It is a pretty simple process, although it does take some time. But if stored correctly it will last over a year. The dehydration process preserves it. I usually wash mine just to get the dust…
