The Community Orchard

Every community should have one of these! We're pretty lucky here that we can walk about 10 minutes down the street and come to an orchard right on the outskirts of town. There you can pick an ice cream pail of Saskatoon berries and just about as much as you want of everything else... There are chokecherries, crab apples, gooseberries, and currents... I think there may be plums in there too but it's early days yet and I wasn't looking for them...

We managed to pick enough Saskatoon berries for a pie but it took forever. The bushes were already picked over and this year has not been stellar for the berries. Oh well. The pie itself is a treasure and made B's day I tell you.

we keep getting these days that start out cloudy, get nice and then big bands of storm clouds float by sometimes dropping a little rain, sometimes a lot and then just cruising through... These clouds didn't scare us though, we were on a mission!

To make up for the hour and a half it took to get 5 cups of berries I talked the kids into picking Chokecherries with me. We got a big bowl in 20 minutes. The fruit was lovely and there are loads of bushes just bursting with cherries.

When we got home I set about teaching the Superstar how to make Gran's pastry (she did pretty well too) and I made the Saskatoon pie and an apple/rhubarb/custard pie. I have enough dough left to make another pie soon. Maybe use up the last of the frozen pumpkin...

I also washed and sorted the chokecherries. I'll be trying my hand at making jelly today. If it turns out I'll share the recipe!

Have you been berry picking this summer?