July 23, turning point for me for year 2008 as far as rainfall; willtry to cann choke cherry juice
 

Today is a pretty day because it is raining all day. Last time this
happened was last Spring, and since it
is 23 July, I will cease worrying about rain for the plants this year
as the midpoint of summer is long past.
I will now make plans for Autumn. Pack up the hoses and drop the
watering schedule.

The past two years were horrible for they were summers without any
rain. This year we had one
dry spell of 3-4 weeks or one month without rain.

My best advice to people who have to battle summers without rain is a
great mulch that keeps the
evaporating moisture in the soil. The very best I have found is
asphalt roof shingles for they stay in
place and not interfer with mowing. Some of my shallow rooted plants
like my currant bushes would
not have survived if not for the shingle mulch. And this year,
especially, it is my currant bushes
yielding the most fruit all thanks to the excellent mulch of asphalt
shingles provide.

I changed my mind on the choke cherries. I am going to try to harvest
them as a juice concentrate.
Where I add no water and slowly boil the fruit and discard the pits.
So whenever I want a cherry juice
drink this winter, I simply add some concentrate to water.

Now I am going to experiment to see what the easiest way of separating
the cherry from the pit, whether
mechanically or applied heat.

Archimedes Plutonium
www.iw.net/~a_plutonium
whole entire Universe is just one big atom
where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies

yes, chokecherry is a do-able canning fruit July 23, turningpoint for me for year 2008 as far as rainfall
 

Earlier today I wrote:

I changed my mind on the choke cherries. I am going to try to harvest
them as a juice concentrate.

Forget a juice concentrate but just merely the juice.

Where I add no water and slowly boil the fruit and discard the pits.
So whenever I want a cherry juice
drink this winter, I simply add some concentrate to water.

Have to add some water. Important thing to remember is that the pits
contain
small amount of poison, so never want to swallow or to open the pits.
And do not want to boil for long.

What makes chokecherry work is that I save the mashed parts and put
into
mouth and eat the uncooked flesh and use my tongue to separate out the
pits
and spit them out.

So what makes it all work for chokecherry is that I get some beautiful
purple colored
cherry juice that I use with the currants. And I eat the mashed
remains and use
my mouth as the pit separator.

So this adds up to a positive plus gain, and not a loss of electricity
and time.



Now I am going to experiment to see what the easiest way of separating
the cherry from the pit, whether
mechanically or applied heat.


The human mouth with its tongue is the only decent means of utilizing
chokecherry.

Now chokecherry is easy to pick and harvest for they are massive
drupes of berries. They are
small with a big pit. There flavor is not as good as a sour or sweet
cherry.

I have read that they can contain worms, but have never actually seen
any wormy chokecherry,
but have never looked close enough.

The color of chokecherry juice is one of the prettiest colors I have
ever seen in a fruit for it is a
distinct purple.

Some people have tried to rename them to make them more saleable in
juices by calling them
"wild cherry". I think that is a good idea for commercializing choke
cherry. But I would still retain
their official name of chokecherry since alot of people do not realize
that the pits are poisonous in
quantity. So by the name chokecherry, they may look into it and find
out about the poison pits
which they otherwise would never find out.

Archimedes Plutonium
www.iw.net/~a_plutonium
whole entire Universe is just one big atom
where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies