Grape Jelly

 

The raccoons and squirrels won't get many of my grapes this year...I've made them into jelly (the grapes not the critters).  This was a good year for the grape vine with clusters of sweet grapes. 

I may have picked some of the grapes early (see the green ones?), but I was in a race against the wildlife.  Besides, it's nothing a little sugar can't handle.

 

I followed my grandmother's recipe, boiling the grapes without water (see below), straining them, and boiling the juice with sugar.  The recipe is in Grow It. Eat It.

I defied the canning gods by pouring the jelly into clean jars...and not processing.  The jelly sits safely in the refrigerator.  Well, not so safely since we've eaten half of it already.  Since it's not "canned," we'll have to eat it soon.  Not a problem. Delicious!

 

Sweet Corn Experiment

My experiment with growing sweet corn in a pot is successful.  We ate several small but tasty ears of bicolor corn.  I started with a large growing bag (sized for potatoes) filled with compost.  Because the bag is made of black fabric, I had both an advantage with holding heat (from the black) and excellent drainage (from the fabric). I planted nine seeds per container.  Because of our cool, wet weather in the early spring I had to re-plant some seeds.  I added organic fertilizer about three times.  I watered faithfully, every day and sometimes twice a day.  (This is the disadvantage to excellent drainage.) The variety is On Deck Hybrid from Burpee, which is a supersweet hybrid.  The advertisement said that the ears would be 7-8 inches long, but mine were smaller, perhaps because we had cool weather while the ears were developing.  But they were delicious!