This year's blackberry crop has been amazing! Nickole and I have walked and driven the back roads around us, and gathered not only wild raspberries and blackberries, but discovered wild black cherries.
I have made a batch of plain blackberry jelly, one of blackberry basil, one of blackberry + wild black cherry. I bought Bing cherries on markdown, and spent a fun couple of hours pitting them. Then I made a "foolproof" Bing Cherry jam recipe. Apparently, I am a better grade of fool... because I followed the recipe exactly, and made a fabulous cherry sauce. It is fabulous, even if it didn't jell.
Peaches were also on sale... and I put up three quarts of gingered peaches.
The batch of Blackberry Basil jelly was an accident. I had intended to make Blackberry Sage jelly. At the fatal moment of stirring the herb into the jelly, I realized I'd gathered basil and not sage! However, it was wonderful as a glaze on grilled pork chops.
As for the regular garden, the deer have been eating quite well. We have replanted green beans three times already, with nary a single bean to reward our efforts. The okra and cucumbers are eaten to nubs as quickly as they can put up shoots.
Sam and Mr C saw an idea of an "invisible fence", and we are trying it. It is relatively inexpensive. We surrounded the garden perimeter with fence posts, then strung 30 lb. test fishing line between them. Our roll had enough line to make three strands. The premise is, the deer are sensitive to the touch of the fishing line, but unable to see it. They cannot tell how high this barrier goes, so don't try to jump over it. They don't realize how easily it breaks.
At least that is the idea.
We already had the fence posts, and a spool of line was less than $3. We shall see how this works out!
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