tall clover farm

Raspberries beat the pants off just about anything I grow. Strawberries are whiners; peaches beyond picky;  apples moonlight as pest magnets; and grapes grouse to be pruned. I love them all, but the raspberry is the most effortless of the bunch. If you fear there’s  little green in your thumb, the raspberry may be a good plant pick for your edible garden.

The Top Ten Reasons I Grow Raspberries

1. Easy to grow–they just want good drainage
2. Birds prefer blueberries and cherries
3. Minimal thorns (if any)
4. Sweetness–flavor and perfume that can’t be beat
5. Self-pollinating–no need to worry about planting two varieties
6. No bending over to harvest–can’t say that about a strawberry
7. Easy to prune–just remove last year’s dead canes
8. Easy to pick–fruit yields to pull when ripe
9. Prolific harvest–a small patch returns a lot of berries
10. Freeze well–freeze single layer on cookie sheet, then place in ziploc bags
11. Versatile fruit–desserts, smoothies, drinks, vinegar, jams, sherbet, sauces
12. Shortcake prefers them (as do I)

Okay, so I went over with my alotted top ten, but I assure you once you start growing raspberries, you’ll be adding to my list.  By the way, my favorite variety for the Puget Sound area is Tulameen.

Oh, and just one more reason: Good help is easy to find.

Added July 26, 2010: My pal Deb in Juneau, Alaska had some ten-digit deliciousness to show off as well. Her photo technique is ingenious. In my photo-edited pic, I’m all left hands, but Deb proves a more resourceful photographer. She wrote, “ I shot with my chin, used the tongue of the boat trailer to hold the camera.” Yep she’s part great gardener, part gifted MacGyver and all good friend. Thanks Deb –  raspberries in Juneau–impressive.

What I was blogging about:

• One year ago: Seattle: Just How Hot Was It?
• Two years ago: Let the Art of Nature Drift By

Boz looks concerned. I promise Boz, your dinner time will never be fashionably late. 

My pal Annette over at Sustainable Eats (along with a couple of her blogging compadres) started Simple Lives Thursday, a blog hop that shares what others are doing in the realm of agriculture, real food, producing more and consuming less.

And since I’ve never met a deadline I didn’t stretch, I’m debuting her Simple Lives Thursday on Fashionably Late Friday. Hopefully, Annette will forgive my faux pas, and I promise to be on-time next Thursday, or a jar of jam is in her future. (Bribery in canned goods, this is a bad trend.)

When it comes toVashon’s Strawberry Festival (going strong since 1909), islanders reside in two camps: those who love it and those who hate it. My tent is tethered to the first camp. (I have my suspicions that the other camp may also prefer handshakes to hugs, avoid puppies and Popsicles, and be quick to profess they never watch TV. Just a theory.)

Sure we import the requisite carnie folk, funnel cakes and midway rides to the island, but Strawberry Festival is really more about the homegrown events and venues unique to Vashon. You can run the other way or you can embrace the crowds, craziness and corndogs. Umm, deep-fried food on a stick…I choose the latter.

Why I love Vashon Strawberry Festival.

1.  It’s an event where farming is fashionable. 

2.  I get to shore up some bragging rights. 

2. The talents of neighbors and friends are on parade. 

3.  Shimmying and shaking take center stage. 

5.  Street dance fever takes over downtown (thanks to the Portage-Fill Harmonic and Captain Dick and the Portholes (though cameras should not be allowed).

6. Nice rides rule the road.

7.  You’re hard-pressed to find any strawberries (raspberries are another story).

8.  And probably the best reason of all, the company can’t be matched. 

Strawberry Festival Activities include:

• Saturday Street Dances
• Grand Parade
• Classic Car Parade
• Vashon Artists in Ober Park
• Kid’s Carnival
• Beer Garden, Wine and Jazz Fusion
• Kiwanis Pancake Breakfast
• Bill Burby Fun Run
• The Fireman’s Water Challenge
• And a whole lot of great Music
• Related links: Photos

What I was blogging about:

• One year ago: Tomato Plants: Leave the Little Suckers Alone
• Two years ago: The Grow Report: Cherry Trees

Mt. Rainier tops the view of Tramp Harbor and Maury Island.

Summer showed up yesterday with a hearty and heated hello. With temperatures on the island reaching 95 degrees, Boz hit the pool, Gracie found some shade and I pondered taking a plunge in Puget Sound. My only complaint about Vashon Island is the absence of Lake Washington, undeniably Seattle’s best place to cool off. 

It’s ironic that I live on an island and there’s really no place to swim. Let me rephrase that. There are places to swim, but with Puget Sound water temps rarely exceeding 53 degrees, the choices are limited. 

While close to my house, Tramp Harbor and KVI beach (top photo) maintain water temperatures cold enough to make a baritone, a soprano. A longer drive takes me to Dockton Park beach where a four-mile inlet warms incoming tides just enough for me to keep my tenor status. Bracing, refreshing and the quickest cooldown known to man, a dip off  the dock can make all right with the world. My clumsy cannonball garnered high marks, claps and laughter from the younger crowd, a fine reminder that no matter what the age, keeping cool has nothing to do with looking cool. 

As for Boz and Gracie, they opted to stay home (to forego the embarrassment) and save up energy for the refilling of the wading pool. 

Boz, British Bulldog and expat, says “All is forgiven, Happy Fourth!”

The Fourth of July comes abruptly to Vashon Island. Anyone on the island with an open window and who’s not on life support cannot escape the approaching drone of the hydroplanes circumnavigating the island like furious wasps. It’s a Vashon tradition I love–if nothing else, but for the letters to the Editor that the 5 a.m. wake-up call elicits. 

Then the Fourth of July settles in quietly around the island, taking in more backyard barbecues, croquet matches, bocce ball, horsehoe sets and fire-pit jam sessions than any other parcel on Puget Sound. Tables will be laden with apple pie, pesto, potato salad, kimchi, sushi and salsa (along with requisite gluten-free experiments) and the faces around the table will be a varied as the dishes served. 

It’s a time for friends and family to slow down and embrace any vestige of summer that suits our fancy. It’s a day when we share the gift of laughter, knowing that today’s joy was secured by yesterday’s sacrifice. We may not speak boldly, but that does not mean the moment escapes our hearts. When the fireworks begin over Quartermaster Harbor, the night sky will ignite in celebration, as will our gratitude and thanks for the generations before us. Your hopes and dreams are alive today in us. Happy Fourth of July from Vashon Island.

This photo was taken on the Seattle – Bainbridge ferry in 2003, a year before I moved to Vashon Island. Maggie and I never missed a Fourth of July on Bainbrdige Island, another local celebration well worth attending.

In my world of skills you need to know, making homemade ice cream is right up there with CPR, changing a flat tire and treading water.  And since I love to grow and eat fruit, I extend that need-to-know requisite to the making of sherbets as well. I think it may be the best use of a berry this side of shortcake and whipped cream.  

This recipe is adapted from my pal Sylvie (French by birth, Virginian by choice) from Laughing Duck Farm.  She used blueberries in her recipe, but trust me, any fresh berry will work beautifully.

Recipe: Raspberry Buttermilk  Sherbet

• 2 cups of raspberries (heaping)
• 1.5 cups of sugar
• 1 lime
• 2 cups of buttermilk

1. Puree the berries in a blender.
2. Add sugar, lime juice, and buttermilk to pureed berries
3. Blend mixture.
4. Strain through a metal sieve to remove seeds
5. Chill.
6. Once chilled, pour into ice cream maker.
7. Remove when frozen and creamy.

Raspberries are seedy little guys (leftovers seen above), so I do recommend straining the mixture before pouring it into the ice cream maker.

My next foray into sorbet will feature a golden raspberry called Amber Queen. Golden raspberries offer a subtle flavor and distinctive perfume.  And not to worry, should you have neither the time nor the interest to make sherbet, the berries are just as delicious on top of  ice cream as in it.  (I have personally tested this assertion over and over.)

 What I was blogging about:

• one year ago: Look Who Turned 102
• two years ago: The Best Way to Ripen Peaches

Foxglove (digitalis purpurea) is the flower of the hour in my Pacific Northwest garden, towering three feet above my close-to six-foot frame. (That’s height not width, for clarification and the time being.) Their show began three weeks ago and will likely continue for another two before the plants brown into equally handsome and imposing seed stalks. Later in the summer, I’ll toss the sand-fine seeds anywhere I’d like to see them sprout. The plant is tough as nails in the Northwest and does well in both sun and shade. Give them a cultivated garden bed and they will double in height.

Foxglove is a biennial, establishing foliage the first year and bursting in bloom the second. All parts of the plant are poisonous so kept them out of your salad spinner.

Sharing the stage, evergreen Western Sword Ferns  ring my porch like a verdant fringe. They too are a low maintenance, deer-proof plant that’s easy to grow. Give them a little compost and they too will reach for the sky.

Boz is a big fan of green beans and the pole bean trellis (but for different reasons). Lucky for me, the green beans form  two feet off the ground. 

My Fortex and Romano green beans have sprouted, and they are looking for my support–something I’ve come to expect in a good pole bean.

After trying all kinds of structures and contraptions–trellises, teepees, stakes, sticks, wattles, and poles–I’ve found a great solution for a long row of pole beans. It’s my tomato trellis, modified with vertical rungs of bamboo poles.

1.  Drive two metal end stakes into the ground the distance of the bean run, securing three wires between each pole.
2. The wires are spaced a foot apart beginning a foot from the soil. 
3. Then, take tall sticks or bamboo poles and weave them vertically between the wires, forcing one end firmly into the ground for added support.  
4. Alternate the wire weave action in the next bamboo pole, working my way down the row. This creates strong tight wires to support the vertical bamboo/stick  trellis. 
5.  A couple months later, and you’ll be enjoying easy pickin’s.

What I was blogging about one year ago: When My Coffee Cup Takes a Walk

Boz is quick to point out that chest-high grass is no dog’s friend. Rain or no rain, it’s time to mow.

If weather was a game of rock- paper-scissors, I’d have to say clouds trump sun in our neck of the woods, just as paper covers rock. Every year, we await solstice and the arrival of summer like worried parents anticipating the return of a prodigal son sun. Will it show up at all and how long will it stay?

I forgive its extended stay in the southern hemisphere and try to make its brief visit here in the Pacific Northwest as pleasant as possible. But yesterday, the weather Grinch showed up to rain on my solstice parade and dampen everything, including my spirits. I awoke to a steady drizzle and temperatures reserved for late November.

Hours later, under a blue tarp by a steaming and determined fire, I experienced a change of heart. I had munched through my first messy s’more, belted out some tried-and-true campfire songs, shared a dewy blanket with a wet dog and dry Oregonian, and challenged a twelve-year-old to a croquet rematch. ”This time no mercy!” (His words.) It was there among the din of drizzle and laughter, that I had my ephiphany, no doubt much like the one the Grinch had that fateful Christmas morning on Mt. Crumpit. 

How the Grinch Did Not Steal Summer in the Northwest 

(With apologies to Dr. Seuss.)  

 ”Pooh-pooh to Northwesterners!” he was grinch-ish-ly humming.
“They’re finding out now that no summer is coming!
“They’re just waking up to a chilly temps. and drizzle!
“Their mouths will hang open, their spirits will fizzle,
“Then they’ll start to cry that this summer won’t sizzle.

“That’s a sound,” grinned the Grinch,
“That I simply must hear!”
So he paused. And the Grinch put a hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound rising over the rain.
It started in low. Then it started to gain…

But the sound wasn’t sad!
Why, this sound sounded merry!
It couldn’t be so!
But it WAS merry! VERY!

He stared down at Vashon!
The Grinch popped his eyes!
Then he shook!
What he saw was a shocking surprise!

Every islander from Burton to Dockton to Tahlequah,
Was singing and playing! Without sunshine at all!
He HADN’T stopped summer from coming!
IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!

And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet all wet in a puddle, 
Stood puzzled, and shivering and completely befuddled.
It came without brightness! It came without heat!
“It came without sweating and dry grass as your seat!”

And he puzzled three hours, `till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before!
“Maybe summer,” he thought, “can’t be stopped by a downpour.
“Maybe summer…perhaps…means a little bit more!”

And what happened then…?
Well…on Vashon they say
That the Grinch’s barometric pressure
Rose three points that day!

And the minute his forecast didn’t feel quite so right,
He threw in a warm breeze and some late evening light
We raised our keg cups, shared a fine summer toast,
Handed the Grinch a warm blanket,  and a marshmallow to roast

As summer solstice led to a shorter next day
Our hearts were warmed by the laughter and play,
Our foul weather coast is master to none,
So here’s to embracing both the rain and the sun.

While a little rain never hurt anyone, it’s the lot of rain that takes it out of you.

Blackberry Blossoms (like other NW residents) are no strangers to days of drizzle.

What I was blogging about one year ago:

•  He Trusted His Son With the T-Bones
• Solstice: Vashon Celebrates the Longest Day

The snap pea is an exceptional, easy-to-grow legume. The day I discovered sugar snap peas was the day I broke up with snow and shelling peas. We still see each other; it’s just not the same. Snap peas offer the best of both: the shelling pea’s cozy row of fat peas, and the snow pea’s tender edible pod. It’s two, two, two peas in one.

Don’t confuse the envelope-thin, anemic snow pea with the zaftig sugar snap, a shapely cousin plump with added bounty.  There’s no comparison.

As for fresh shelling peas, I’m still a fan (if only to make paglia e fieno four times in one month), but the harvest payoff is usually disappointing. You plant a lot, and get a little.  Sugar snap peas not only have greater yields but are much sweeter  and more disease resistant. Did I mention the plant’s stem tips are edible, too. If your pea crops have flopped in the past, give sugar snaps a try.    (Seeds are readily available at seed stands and online.)

Super sweet sugar snap peas: a quick snack in hand or star of the saute pan 

Related info:  The Edible Pea from A to Z, Peas in the Garden

 Freshly-picked ice cubes: There’s nothing like the taste of homegrown.

The topic of weather is rarely tabled here on the island. In fact, it’s usually the opener and the final word. “Some weather, eh?” The question is posed to friends and strangers alike whether we’re sporting a sweater or galvanized in Gore-Tex, ordering a latte or waiting for the ferry. Toasty warm or bone-chilling damp, there are fine details to discuss to prolong the subject and the conversation. (After all, island time is measured in half hours not minutes.)

I’m not immune to such behavior, especially when it comes to my latest crop: ice cubes. I can’t remember a better growing season, extending well into mid-June this year. The cold temperatures and relentless rains have been perfect conditions for growing fully-shaped brittle ice cubes–the kind that crack with precision into shiny shards with the whack of soup spoon–the kind that linger in your glass awaiting the next re-fill–the kind that put the capital “D” in Daiquiri. 

I’m strictly an heirloom ice cube grower, sticking with the tried-and-true varieties that spring from the legendary wells of  Water District 19. (Much like wine appellation, ice cubes from other island locales like Burton or Dockton can’t be sold as sourced from Water District 19.) Oh yeah, I can taste the difference.

While others complain about heating bills, mood swings usually reserved for Northwest winters and corn that’s as high an a centipede’s eye, I’m grateful that I have one last mess of cubes for the weekend. Luckily, they freeze well,  and I can extend their use for a couple weeks. Sweet tea here, a smoothie there, it’s hard for me to let go of the season and move on to strawberries and raspberries.  I’ll be sure to reserve a bagful or two for my friends M & J who appreciate the nuisances of homegrown cubes to cool fine Kentucky bourbon and calm down their juleps. (Did I mention they trade Dungeness crab?)

So the next time you begin to complain about the weather, think again and thank Mother Nature and the farmer who brought you your high ball’s sparkling star. Ice cubes like these don’t just grow on trees or in places where the sun is a regular visitor during the summer months. We’re indeed blessed in the Pacific Northwest. (Now where’s my blender?)

Late harvest ice cubes and doing a little showing off a week before summer solstice.

What I was blogging about:

• One year ago:  Morning Has Broken, and Time Is a Wastin’
• Two years ago: Too Much Rhubarb Means Too Much Good Jam

There are two types of strawberries: those grown locally and those at home in a plastic clamshell. 

• Local berries: soft, juicy and bruised by a simple indiscretion. 
• Store-bought strawberries: large, structurally sound and able to be dropped from tall buildings and remain unscathed. 

Unfortunately what the latter offers in transportability and durability, it usually lacks in flavor. And while local berries reign supreme, their coronation and abdication are but months apart, making for a short-lived legacy.

For the times when local berries are a memory and my addiction to shortcake prevails, I buy store-bought organic strawberries. (Please, no judging, and besides, the whipped cream made me do it.)  Because these strawberries can often times enjoy a crunch factor shared with the likes of jicama and water chestnuts, I offer this simple recipe to soften the texture a tad and enhance the flavor immensely. Before you wince, give it a try. It is remarkably good and about as simple as it gets.

Recipe: Strawberries Dressed in Balsamic Vinegar & Brown Sugar Syrup

Ingredients

• 1 pound strawberries
• 2 T brown Sugar
• 1 T balsamic vinegar

Preparation

1. Wash the berries, dry, hull and quarter lengthwise
2. Mix brown sugar and balsamic vinegar into syrup
3. Toss the berries
4. Let them sit for one half hour
5. Toss again, serve, and thank me later

I use the syrup sparingly, just enough to coat the berries, brighten the flavor and draw out some juices. 

My own alpine (fraises de bois), Tristar and Albion strawberries are about a two weeks from ripening.

That said (Boz & Gracie cover your ears), I’ll have to rely on this dynamic flavor duo to brighten some store-bought berries in the meantime.  

• One year ago: Old Sofas Never Die…Unless Assisted (or How to Chainsaw Your Sofa)