Autumn garden -

Life drawing started up again today. So typically Fridays will be Life Drawing posts. Except that I didn't go today (luckily I have a fabulous assistant who ran things in my absence) since I had been up all night keeping my husband company in the ER with his latest kidney-stone attack. It's all over - everything's good, we're just both just suffering the after-effects of multiple hours spent at the hospital (in my case, in a hard folding chair in a chilly room). So, no life drawing. No art of any kind really today since I don't seem to be able to really focus my eyes... :-)

So instead, here's a report of impending ripeness in the yard:

One of my newer bushes, an aronia, or flaming chokeberry (as the autumn foliage gets gorgeously red-magenta), is covered with clusters of near-black, ripe berries. They are fairly bland to eat right off the bush but are supposed to be uber-high in antioxidants. So now to find other ways to use (I hear juice/jellies/breads are good?)

I also have a pretty good crop of Sea Buckthorn berries this year. *Very* tart eaten raw (almost impossible to eat actually), but also supposedly super high in Vitamin C and other nutrients. And sweetened, it tastes somewhat like passion-fruit, which I love. It's just a little precarious to pick because of the woody, thorny branches... Extreme-sport fruit harvesting!

This will also be my first year that my Hardy Kiwi vine will produce. These are 'baby' kiwis, about the size of grapes, thin skinned and sweeter than their larger, more common counterparts.

It is also the first productive year for my tiny dwarf Italian (prune) plums, my favorite plums to eat, dry, roast and turn into tarts. Tasty purple goodness!

And another first with this year's small, but yet substantial columnar apple crop. I'm all about the space efficient trees! I have 5 of these (three different varieties) growing along my deck. They only need to be planted about a foot apart from each other.

And even though I don't eat (or drink) them, the hops are blooming. Beyond their commonly known beer brewing usage, the flowers are also used in a number of herbal applications - the most common ones being related to sleep and their sedative qualities (a fabulous inclusion in a sleep pillow).

Sleep... sleep sounds good. Here's hoping for more luck with getting some tonight...

It is a Berry Good Summer...

Warning - garden post below:

We've been fairly cool, and quite dry - since April - so my summer veggies are still languishing. But the berries have been very happy this year.

Strawberries are always the first to ripen. This past year I pulled out my older patch and replaced them all with Tri-star berries. They start early, and while not heavy bearers, they continue to consistently produce sweet, tasty berries up until it gets too cold for them to ripen (late October/early November)... I have strawberries on my Trader Joe's granola every morning for over four months. A happy thing...

Blueberries begin to ripen next. I have 6 different varieties - early, mid and late season - so again, I get berries from mid-June all the way through October. They all taste different. My favorites are the spicy-sweet-tart early bushes...

Right now, the gooseberries are waiting for me to pick them from their thorny branches. I have sweet, pink varieties - sweet enough to eat fresh (all the green ones I've had are too tart to eat uncooked). They are even better frozen.

This is my first year for red currants. This variety was sweeter than I'd expected. Beautiful, ruby globes. I cooked them with rhubarb, onion and spices for a fabulously tangy chutney.

These are jostaberries - a cross between black currants and gooseberries. They taste... dark, smoky and complex. The taste really grows on you. They are also terrific frozen. I put them in smoothies all year.

Oh, and the raspberries...

We get bowls and bowls of raspberries from my patch. Sweet, tart and tangy - for me, the very essence of summer.

There are fall berries still to come - seaberries, aronia berries, lingonberries, wintergreen, magnolia berries, goji berries, highbush cranberries, grapes, and new for me this year - minature kiwis! Much berry goodness to look forward to!

Now back to illustration...