The mulberries are ripe and ready for picking. We laid down the plastic and my husband Art climbed up the tree. My sister in law stopped by later that evening to collect the bounty. It's the first of many times we will shake the one of three mature trees over the next few weeks. It's a sticky everything situation but oh so worth it.
What do we do with all the mulberries? Over the years, we have fermented for raki, smashed and strained to make pekmez (mulberry molasses), squeezed for juice and frozen a few batches. We are still deciding how we will use this years harvest. What are your recommendations?
In orchard news...we have cut the hay and inspected the pomegranate trees. And we have a few duds but we have a very happy with the growth over the last two years. We have three varieties: davedish, hicanzar, and wonderful. And so far the bounty of our buds are coming from the hicanzar varieties. It's a sour-sweet variety native to Turkey. Wonderfuls are catching up quickly.
My, oh my the garden! We are seeing the fruits of our labor. We are currently eating loads of onions, garlic, strawberries, salads, and spinach. Tomatoes, cucumbers, beans and peppers are almost ready. And we are collecting chamomile about every other day to dry for tea. We planted more tomatoes, brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, pumpkins, and basil.
The first week of May...
Last week of May...
Third week of May.
And the trees in the garden have exceeded my expectations. We have new fruits and nuts growing this year including walnut, orange, lemon, blueberry, aronia berries, and a new variety of plum.
And our mature trees are hanging in there with the rising dry season. Here is the latest blooms, fruits and buds.
And last but not least we have grapes! The vineyard is thriving and the shade for the hammocks is nearly covered. The beginning of May to now you can see the fill in within weeks. We are loving this season and the bees.
Our little green wonderland.
And in publishing news. Art recorded his audiobook for his book Northern Albanian Legends, Myths and Folk Tales. It will be published in the next thirty days. And the Castle of Teskom Audiobook is hitting shelves on June 1st. It is narrated by the talented Amy J. Johnson, a true performance of the book and brings life to the characters. If you are not in the market to buy, put in a request at your local library.
And the second editions for the Ember in Time Series have started to roll out. We have two of the three published versions out. Check out the new covers for the Castle of Teskom and Recover or Yield. The new editions include chapter art, a fantasy map and more. What do you think of the new covers?
