Summer Produce & Wedding Preperations

Pickled Jalapenos with garlic.

I haven't posted in a bit, but I thought I would check in & drop a post. I am waiting feverishly for produce to start coming in so I can can to my hearts content. So far this summer I have pickled a year's worth of Jalapenos for less than 5$. I made 5 jars of cherry lemon jam & 8 jars of classic sweet cherry jam.

10 pounds of sweet black cherries

I had a ton of fun picking strawberries out in the Town of Whitby which made some of the best strawberry jam I've ever had. The weather has been awful this summer in Toronto, so I was really shocked at the late but delicious strawberry harvest. The folks at the farm were very surprised I was able to get such a good haul. They said a lot of the fruit was rotting on the vine with all the damp effecting it. A lot of farms & folks from the farmers market are complaining about the cold wet summer we are having. Apparently the Great Lakes are much colder due to the nasty polar vortex this winter. This has left much of Southern Ontario a foggy wet mess this summer. My balcony garden is really suffering.
I got my first harvest of chili's that detached from the plant on their own, but they are green. Good for pickling, but not hot enough for what I want.

Goofing around at the Pingles Farm

My adorable stepdad Glen.

Storms have repeatedly blown my tomatoes around & I lost some of my fruit. My Ground cherries are half dead, but oddly producing big sweet fruit for a change. It's my first year of serious gardening & I am very confused to say the least. I am going to attempt seed harvesting from my chili's & make an attempt on them next spring. My goals for the rest of the summer are another batch of raspberry & red current jam,  pickled Jardiniere, bread & butter pickles, & hopefully my first stab at habenero gold jelly. (I tried making simple grape jelly earlier this year & it was bad, bad, bad.) My hopes are for August weather so the serious food crops will be amazing this fall.

All of that will have to wait however because I been asked to make a lot of the wedding goodies for my good friend Patty's Wedding. As you can see we have started on the butterflies that will go onto the cupcakes. They are made with Royal Icing which will dry out over the next month & get placed into cupcakes. (Royal icing dries into candy when finished) Congratulations Patty. I wish you & Pete all the best.