The Vacation Garden

As I mentioned in the previous post, we drove to Arizona recently.  And back.  With a dog.  During harvest time.  With 80 pounds of Hatch chiles.

Probably the most stressful aspect was leaving the garden during harvest.  For a non-gardener, that might seem really silly, but for a gardener, it is perfectly understandable, or so I like to think.  However, I had back-up.  Our son lives not far away, is interested in gardening, doesn't have his own yet and was kind enough to tend mine.  Fortunately also, it rained a lot and was cool, so plant stress was low and ripening slowed a bit.

There was still plenty to harvest, as evidenced by the buckets, baskets and bowls of produce covering the kitchen floor.  So now it is on to cataloging the haul and preserving the harvest.

Prickly Pear Jelly - Recipe

The Minnesota State Fair has just ended, but we didn't go this year.  Instead, we drove to Tucson to visit family!  It was a great trip, if a long one, especially considering we spent 28+ hours each way in the car with a large Golden Retriever.  But she got a bath before we left and loves to ride in the car.

We had multiple goals for this trip - visiting my mom, brothers, aunt and daughter, delivering goods to said daughter for the school year, and, lastly, getting peppers from Hatch, New Mexico.  I will have to explain the peppers in another post, but they are a really terrific accidental discovery. 

Filling jars with Prickly Pear Jelly

Combining the spirit of the state fair and Tucson, the last thing we did before we left Mom's house was pick what turned out to be 13 pounds of prickly pear fruit.  What?, you say.  And why?  To make Prickly Pear Jelly, of course!



Prickly Pear Jelly

Supplies:

• 8 pounds of ripe prickly pear fruits (also called tuna), for 8 cups of juice
• 1 cup lemon juice
• 1 cup unsweetened, unfiltered apple juice
• 2 boxes low-sugar pectin
• 4 cups sugar
• 1/3 cup honey