Believe it or not, it is almost apple season!  In just a few weeks the old Heritage summer apples will be ready.  These include:

Red Astrachan

Early Joe

Early Harvest

Lowland Raspberry

Primate

Summer Rose

Sweet Bough   and.....

Yellow Transparent.

Throughout July and August these varieties will ripen and will be ready for picking, each coming ripe at some point during these two months.

If you are foraging, as I do, you will need to go out every weekend during the summer so you don't miss these delicate apples.  Some of my readers may be wondering just where to look for these tasty treats.

Most often, summer apples were grown for home use - a few were grown for the local market, or the fruit and veg stand at the end of the farm lane.  So, if you know where there was an old farm house, look close to the house for your summer apples.  Often this can be identified by a lilac tree which would also have been grown near the house - sometimes beside the outhouse to help mask the aroma!

A copy of the book can be ordered from me - via e-mail or messenger.  If using e-mail please contact me at:

sherleetooze@gmail.com.   The book is $25 with $7 postage and I will put a copy in the mail same day as I get your order or early the next morning.  I will enclose an invoice that you can pay when you receive your book.

Looking forward to hearing from a whole bunch of you!  Good luck with this year's foraging!  I've been gathering vintage apple recipes in anticipation of this year's crop!

 

Here we are halfway through June and I'm just now getting around to posting another message on this blog.  It's odd, really.... at the beginning of the year my calendar was absolutely empty, but I have been so busy these past few months that my head is spinning!  This time of year the garden takes priority over a lot of things when it isn't raining, even priority over blogging !!!

Doug Hodnott

At the TCA Booth, June 2, 2018

Guess I ought to catch you up with June's comings and goings so far...  The first weekend we were away to the Ontario Genealogical Conference at Guelph.  Great weekend !  Met a lot of people I haven't seen since last year's  conference and likely won't see again until next year's conference - a great place to renew old friendships!  One of those friendships is with a fellow, Doug Hodnott, whom I've known for many years from attending the BIFHSGO Conference in Ottawa each fall. We discovered, on June 1st, that we are related !!!  What better place than a genealogy conference to find cousins!  His father's ancestors came from Fogo Newfoundland.  My mother's ancestors came from Fogo Newfoundland.  We compared notes and found that he is descended from the same Dorset immigrant as I am.  Awesome!!     

Also at this year's conference, Roger and I were privileged to be next to the Toronto Cornish Association table. Both Roger and I are Cornish - Roger moreso than me - he was born there !  My dad's ancestors came from there in 1860.  While chatting with them a lady visited their booth, Vicki Noels-Cornish and stayed a while to chat too.   Here we are from left:  Marion Stephens, Vicki Noels-Cornish, Sher, Ann Tozer.

No photos of the garden yet, even though the plants are growing well.  I've been picking our dinner already for the last couple of evenings, and I have a  small bowlful of strawberries ready to do something with - don't know yet just what. The rain last night sure helped the plants and my rain barrels - they were both nearly empty.  The plants at the allotment site are coming along and I should have loads of carrots and beans this year.  The little pots of seedlings from Price's greenhouse had six plants in them this year instead of the usual four, so there are lots of peppers and lots of kale.  M-m-m-m- I get hungry just thinking about all the good stuff yet to come.

Not a lot else to write about today.  If anyone has an idea about things to write about, let me know by e-mailing me at sherleetooze@gmail.com