Of Harvest and Odd things

Another weekend at home, another Monday of being sore as all get out.

Can't complain about the results though!

My Dad and I had Saturday morning together, as my Mom was busy crafting with her ladies. Originally, I was supposed to make bagels. However, when my mom mentioned that the white currants really needed to be harvested, I decided I wanted to help.

White currants are actually an albino variety of the red currants we're all so familiar with. I find they aren't as sour, and they just look so cool hanging on the bush. My parents planted 2 of these bushes next to the path in the backyard, and they were loaded! I started out with a just picking a colander full..

Which quickly escalated to two bowls full:

Which quickly escalated to me calling Dad for help:

That's 4.5 kg of white currants! It would be worth about 80 bucks in the store, and all off our two backyard bushes. We didn't even fully harvest the second, we were so worn out and it was getting quite hot.

We decided to make jelly. We used equal parts white currants and sugar, and 1.5 times the water. It didn't quite set up properly, so we're thinking we need to either reduce the water, or add pectin. Red currants are very high in pectin, so we assumed that white currants would be as well. Again, we're kinda playing here. Next year, we'll have a better idea what we're doing.

While waiting for these beauties to pop, my dad and I read up on black currants, and found out they make a fantastic cordial... And back out to the garden we went.

We filled up our Mehu-Liisa, added about 4 cups of sugar and 6 tbsps of lemon juice, and let it do its thing. This stuff is FANTASTIC. We tried it mixed with ginger ale later that night, and the next day we poured it into our water bottles to go hike the land. I'm so impressed with it!

So that was Saturday in Orangeville. I haven't even started Sunday! Oh dear...