The season's end and grape pie

 

 Helene:

NOTE: This article was written in the fall of 2022, but it took me until may of 2023 to publish it.

 The pandemic, world's events and life's general chaotic state affected our ability (and will) for publishing gardening articles on this blog. Looking at it, the last publication dates from June 2020... But our gardens have kept on going even if it wasn't particularly newsworthy enough to publish.

creamy oats with garden peaches

After 10 years of marvellous peaches, the tree was cut down this year because it had been sick for years: a type of chancre spread and eventually won against it even after I repeatedly sprayed it with a recommended solution. I will keep a vivid memory of it and will most likely try my luck again in the future with a new tree

There is a plant in my garden I haven't fully talked about yet and it is a roaring success. It's a Concord grapevine that's been planted - Oh - about 12 years ago. It is running the length of the balcony with a somewhat startling hardiness. I actually have to hack it back throughout the growing season because it always tries to climb the black cherry next to it.

Cat in the grapevine 2021, we can see a tiny cluster of future flowers against kitty's fur.

The harvest is pretty good too. There's enough fruits to make about 2 medium pies or one really big one. En terme de récolte, elle n'est pas mal non plus. The pie itself is amazing and is this home's favourite pie.

 

Concord grapes have the peculiarity of having a pulp that's very solid, not loosely gelatinous. The pips are also big and hard to take out of the pulp, which makes it easier to eat them with the pips, something I'm not fond of personally. I prefer these fruits as a jelly, jam or juice, even if it takes a long time to prepare

To prepare them, each fruit as to be separated from the cluster - the branch holding them all together. Then, when you press on them, the pulp will pop out of the skin. You have to do that. To. Every. Fruit. It's a long process, is all I'm sayin'.

The left picture show the operation. The metal bowl contains the skins, the pot to the right as the beads of pulp (containing the pips) and the black plastic pan as the unaltered fruits.

When cooking the pulp in the pot for a small amount of time, the pulp becomes softer and it is then easy to pass this jelly through a sieve. That way, you can take out the pips. You combine the jelly "sans" pips back with the skins and there you go! It's ready to be cooked it with sugar. My favourite recipe comes from this site. There's other fabulous recipes on there too, for Concord grapes.

This year was a fabulous year for the harvest. There was a lot of fruits to enjoy!

 

Grapes are perennials and they are the last big harvest on my yard. Of course, there are still somme herbs and annuals like tomatoes and beans to be harvested but once the grapes harvest as been done, the rest is all slowing down, fall settles nicely with it's fiery colours and I'll close down the garden, dreaming of my next grape pie!