Fruit Trees Spring 2013

Well, it has been a weird spring as far as the weather.  We had frosty cold nights (down to -5°F) a few times and a week of +30°F weather.  The last week, we had lots of rain - enough to half-fill the small wheelbarrow.

I went out to check on how the fruit is coming and found both good and bad news.

Next to no peaches.  Last year we had so many that I had to thin them out.  The late frost happened when the trees were blooming so no peaches.  :(

 

The apricot tree in the back is loaded - even with Barry's severe pruning this year.  He cut the tree back quite a bit to shorten it so we don't have to climb so high on the ladder to pick the fruit.

 

We are going to have lots of plums.  They seem to be very hardy as we have had an abundance of plums each year.

 

Look at the poor cherries!  :(  They are so scarce, we didn't even bag the trees against the cherry fruit fly this year.  it was too much work for so few cherries.  The frost hit the cherry blossoms as well as the peaches this year.  :(

 

It looks like the apple crop will be good.  I will be soon thinning out the apples so the fruit gets bigger.  I'd rather have fewer but larger fruit than lots of small apples.

 

The pears are plentiful and will need thinning as well.

 

Here is the second apricot tree which is loaded like the other tree.  It'll be the year for apricot juice and jam.

 



A Spring Day

The weather this spring is a lot cooler than we've had the last few years.  It goes below freezing almost every night plus has been rainy and windy.  It has been snowing up on the mountains while we are getting rain down here.

The first year we were in Lillooet, we were already planting potatoes, etc. by this date.

It was a nice day so I decided to do some work in the flower beds, with supervision, of course.   ;)

 

I was working on the quack grass and Lulu was working on the worms and bugs.

 

I would often have to move Lulu as she would get in the way - standing right where I was digging.

 

Here she is giving me a look because I had just moved her a bit.

 

Lulu does get in the way, but I really don't mind too much.  She likes to stay close to me and I think at times she gets lonely.

 

Some of the daffodils are out.

 

They are such a vibrant yellow.  I love them!

 

The apricot tree in the front yard is blooming.  There were quite a few bees buzzing around the blossoms.

 

Looks like we're getting a good crop of apricots again.

 

Apricots burst into bloom so quickly.  One day you have a bare tree and the next day you go out and BAM! - the whole tree is in bloom.  Amazing!  :) 

 

 

 



Apricot and Yellow Plum Jam

I saw a recipe for Apricot and Yellow Plum Jam in my cookbook, "250 Home Preserving Favorites" by Yvonne Tremblay that sounded interesting.

I took the basic idea and made changes because she used commercial pectin and lots of sugar.  I find most recipes with pectin have more sugar than I would like.  I don't like to make jam where you use more sugar than fruit.  It also used Apricot Brandy which I left out.

Ingredients
8 c apricots
8 c yellow plums
1 qt homemade pectin
1/2 c lemon juice
8 c sugar


Wash, half and pit apricots.  I used some greener apricots as I read fruit has more pectin then and you should use some under-ripe fruit when making jam.

I used the yellow plums on the greener side so had to cut them off the pit. Last year when they were very ripe in the Three Plum Jam http://mountaingardengleanings.blogspot.ca/2011/09/three-plum-jam.html, they seemed to be too juicy and took too long to boil down to jam.

I boiled the fruit together with the pectin and lemon juice until it was soft.

Then I added the sugar and boiled until it was jam.  Last year I used the cold saucer trick but this year I'm trying the thermometer.  You are to boil the jam until it reaches 220°F or 100°C.  Skim off foam and pour into sterilized jars.  Process for 10 minutes in hot-water bath.

The jam was very fragrant when cooking and was tasty when tested.  It is runnier than the Spiced Apricot Jam but that used apricot pulp so had less juice to boil down.  The recipe made 9 pints.

Apricot Juice and Spiced Apricot Jam

Well the apricots are ready.  We have two apricot trees that are quite different.   I was told that the apricot trees here in Lillooet all got their start from apricot pits brought over by the Chinese labourers that worked on the railroad years ago.  Apricot trees start very easily. 

Our tree in the back has very juicy fruit - so juicy that as the fruit ripens they they start to hang like little sacks of juice.  You don't want to brush against those when you are picking apricots or you'll be covered in sticky juice.  These apricots are great to eat right off the tree or to make into juice.  The fruit on the tree in the front never get that soft.  They are not as sweet to eat right from the tree but they freeze well and are good in desserts and jam.

This year, many of the apricots from the back tree had splits in the skin so were not usable as the ants were drawn to the sweetness.  We think it may have been the weather with the rainy cool spring and then very hot temperatures.  We think the skins might have toughened up and then split as the fruit got larger - but this is just speculation on our parts.

This is how I make juice and jam.  I picked two large buckets of fruit.  I wash, sorted and pitted the apricots.

I then ran the apricots through my juicer.  I have a Breville Juice Fountain Elite.  The juice goes into the jug on the right side and the pulp is collected in the container on the left.

I then bring the juice to a boil.  Skim off any foam so the juice is clearer.

Pour the juice into sterilized jars and process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.  I got 4 quarts of apricot nectar.  I don't strain out the pulp so the juice is very thick and oh so tasty.

Then I used the leftover pulp for Spiced Apricot Jam.  You could use regular apricots for the jam but would just have to cook it longer.

Ingredients
8 c apricot pulp
4 c sugar
1/3 c lemon juice
1 qt homemade pectin
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp cloves

Pour the pulp and the rest of the ingredients in a large pot and bring to a boil, stirring frequently so the jam won't burn.  The smell of apricots and spices is wonderful as the jam cooks.

I bought a candy thermometer this year and am using it instead of the cold saucer to test the jam.  You are to cook the jam until it reaches 220°F or 100°C.  Since the pulp was so thick it had a tendency to spatter and spit so I had to put it into a taller pot. 

When it reaches the jam stage, pour into sterilized jars and process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.  I got 6 pints of jam. 

Fruit Trees in Bloom

Here's what's blooming in our yard right now.  The apples blossoms are opening.  The buds are dark pink but when the blossoms open they are so pale, they are almost white.



We have a number of varieties of apple - some early and some late but they all seem to bloom at the same time.

On sunny days, (which we have had few of this spring) the bees are buzzing in and amongst the blossoms.

Here we can see one busy bee making the rounds.

The saskatoon bushes are full of blooms as well.  We were given the bushes last year and they had a few blossoms but did not amount to much.

If you are from Saskatchewan, as I am, one of your favorite pies is saskatoon berry pie.



The blossoms are quite a bit smaller and scragglier than the fruit trees but I'm looking forward to harvesting them if I can get them before the birds do.

Here we can see the apricots forming where just recently there were masses of flowers.

The pear tree has never been so full of flowers since we moved here.  I guess the pruning is paying off.

You can see that the pear blooms are white and the petals are longer and farther apart than the apple blossoms.

If even half of the blossoms set fruit, we will have to thin the fruit dramatically.

Personally, I think that peach blossoms are the prettiest.  They have already finished blooming and will hopefully set fruit.  They are the touchiest trees we have.  The first year here, there was a late frost and it damaged the peach blossoms so no one in the area had any peaches.

We have several peach trees and the blooms are all different shades of pink.

This is my favorite tree as the blossoms look so rich.  Our peach trees are not all doing well.  One of them split last year from poor pruning and high winds.  With others we have had to prune away dead branches.

This tree has much paler pink blossoms than the above trees. 

Here are two peach trees with quite different shades of blossoms.  You can see that the first tree has been pruned severely because of dead and broken branches.  Hopefully it will survive.



Smoothies

Lately I have been making smoothies for my family to drink.  I have been using frozen and canned fruit from our orchard.  I don't use a recipe as such but here are some of the results.

In the blender toss in fruit of your choice - here I am using unsweetened frozen raspberries.



Next add fruit flavoured yogurt that goes with your choice of fruit.  I used raspberry this time.



Add some ice cubes.  I add a glass or two depending if the fruit is frozen, cold or warm.



Add some liquid.  (I use vanilla soy milk but you could use milk or juice as well)  If you use fruit in juice or syrup you may not need any other liquid.



Blend until ingredients are mixed and smooth.



Enjoy!  :)



I use different fruit that I have on hand.  I add bananas if I have them. 
I've used home-canned peaches (I use a lighter sugar-syrup) with peach yogurt.





Apricot puree goes great with mango yogurt.  The puree was frozen when I made apricot juice and I froze some puree to use in baked goods.  I haven't used any in baking because it is so good in smoothies.





Canned plums (pits removed but skins on) with fieldberry.



Leftover canned pineapple with strawberry yogurt.



Frozen pitted cherries with black cherry yogurt.



The list goes on and on and you can change your yogurt flavours as well.

Once the fruit is ripe, I will be using fresh fruit again.

Bottoms up and enjoy!  :)