apple party 2.0: forming traditions

when you think of your family, surely there are many things that spring to mind as traditions- those things that you always do together.  what i never thought about was how much energy went into to creating those traditions.  luke and i have decided to make an apple cider pressing party a tradition of ours, involving us, family, friends, and most importantly neighbors.  you can read about last year's pressing party here, and we had another successful party at the beginning of this month, pressing about 45 gallons of cider.

some things were the same: 

*we got the apples from oregon heritage farm again.

*it was a group effort!  de-stickering, washing, chopping, pressing, bottling.

*children make the apples that much cuter, especially our niece clara.

and ziyad just couldn't get enough!

 

  some differences this year were:

*there were new babies there!

my dear friend mogli and her little one taylor.

brandon and victoria are expecting their first little one in december!

 

*we pressed honeycrisp apples instead of jonagold like we did last year.  the cider turned out too sweet and i think next year, we 'll go back to jonagold.  the tart flavor lends itself nicely to cider.  a huge cubic yard cost $200 this year, instead of $100 last year, but still a great deal. 

*we found a press this summer at a garage sale, so we mainly used that instead of our homemade version from last year.  we did however still use an old "insinkerator" to mush up the apples.

*this year, we asked for donations from folks that went toward a community orchard that luke has been working on in our neighborhood.

the hard cider is well under way and i'm already looking forward to next year! 

remembering summer

Aa the weather dipped into below freezing temperatures this week and we had a "snow day", it seems like an appropriate time to post some of the highlights from our first summer of gardening.  we had so much fun planting and experimenting and then enjoying the bounty of our harvest!  we successfully grew: tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, spinach, basil, carrots, beets, potatoes, basil, jalapenos, bell peppers, 1 sweet meat squash (that took over half the garden with its vines), green onions, garlic, kale, zucchini, raspberries, blueberries and strawberries.  we were most pleased with our zucchini and tomato plants, as well as the strawberries.  amos found a strawberry today, midway through november! 

next year, we hope to grow more cucumbers, broccoli, and cabbage, as well as figure out how to grow bigger onions.  we started as many things as we could from seed inside the house before transplanting them and will continue that method.  luke's favorite guide to gardening was Steve Solomon's Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades.

warning: lots of photos to follow.  i just couldn't narrow it down any further!

here's the bounty of the earth!