Blueberries and Blackberries

I didn't get that many blueberries or blackberries this year, but what I could pick, I washed and put into ziplock bags and froze.

What can I do with blueberries and blackberries you ask?

Fruit smoothies: yogurt, berries, milk, juice, ice and put into blender---YUM
Fruit Crumble: berries, put into baking dish, take oatmeal, melted butter and
brown sugar, mix together and put on top of berries.
Bake 350 degrees for about 30 min.
Fruit Muffins: fruit and muffin mix or home-made muffin batter and add your
berries
Fruit Pancakes: Fruit and pancake batter. Pour batter into your pan, place blue-
berries on top of batter, cook on one side, toss over and
cook on the other side in a hot buttered pan.
Fruit Oatmeal: Make your oatmeal for breakfast or cream of wheat and throw some
berries and sugar on top and your good to go.
Fruit Berries
Dehydrated: Put the berries in your dehydrator and make just like raisins.
Then you can add to home-made granola or with nuts and
other good things for a snack or trail mix.

MY BLACKBERRIES ARE SO BIG, TWO OF THEM ARE THE SIZE OF MY CAR KEY.

Weekend Rose Honey

This weekend, after doing aing a bit of antique shopping, I was able to salvage some rose petals from my bush.

I am studying herbs from Herb.com. I wanted to taste what rose honey would taste like but have not had enough roses to pick. Either I get a couple of roses and the petals fall off or there are no roses. I had planted about 3-4 new bushes this year. Two survived and no flowers at all. So these petals are from last years bushes. A rose bush will not produce the first year most of the times especially if you buy the bushes at Christmas Tree shop. Hopefully, they will survive the winter and come back. My yard is very good for roses. "Draught" summer is what I call this year. No water and I am guilty-I have not watered the roses much at all. What do I expect then? The more fragrant the petals are, the better the flavor and the better health wise for you. These petals were not fragrant enough.

Two weeks ago, Dan, the kids and I were at the beach in Salisbury Beach in Massachusetts. The kids and I took a long walk and I was able to pick rose hips. I want to make something decorative with them for the fall or use them to make a syrup. Not sure. I better make up my mind though soon because they are drying and if I want to make a syrup, the rose hips should be red.

Today, we travelled a bit in Massachusetts and I noticed that the edible herbs and street side wildflowers are drying up more here in the Merrimack Valley area than the Worcester County area. I would have loved to stop and pick-forage-harvest. Hubby was driving too fast though. My main goal was to find mullein to make earache oil. I need the flowers from it.

My rhubarb and blueberries are done for the season I believe. I have one bush of raspberries and perhaps I will get two cups and that is it. Harvesting raspberry leaves and drying them are great for tea though. Next project....too many

The Bluist Berries Ever

Check out these bluest blueberries ever from our garden. Last year was so much rain, but we got about 16 cups of berries. This year is extremely dry and so far 2 cups of berries. I guess these bushes like the water. Also, we had friends help prune last November, kind of a no no in Massachusetts even though it was very warm in November, so I think that curbed the amount of berries. I see possibly 2-4 cups of berries left on the one bush and two other bushes did not produce at all.
I washed them good and put them into a ziplock baggy to freeze. Now they are frozen and awaiting what I want to do with them: mmmmmmmmm

Blueberry pie
Blueberry jam
Blueberry cobbler
Blueberry Seltzer
Blueberry muffins
Blueberry bread
Blueberry Crumb cake
Blueberry Smoothie

Fresh Apples and Apple Cider

Soon, you will see a photo of my fresh apple sauce from my new found apple tree and I got another thought-why don't I make some apple cider in my fruit juicer. Believe it or not, these thoughts are just coming to me!

Becoming more and more knowledgeable with edible herbs, using the fruits that are right in my own yard, are a start to self sufficiency.

To all of my sisters in the Lord, I depend wholly on the Lord and His provisions are great.

Last year was so rainy, I received nothing from my garden. This year is so dry, I am losing plants everywhere in the yard. Friends pruned my raspberries and blueberries so much and in November (they were trying to help me with my huge yard because of health reasons) and I have no raspberries this year and only one bush of blueberries which aren't looking so great either.

So, to a better thought, I am going to forage and harvest edible weeds and herbs.

Today: Queen Anne's Lace!