Garden Huckleberry Jam and Tiny Seedlings

It's November and still quite warm (there have only been one or two mornings with frost) so my lazy attitude about garden cleanup is sort of okay (it really isn't though). Here are the general garden updates: surviving sugar pie pumpkin plant is dead, pumpkins are green, I'm not sure they will ripen, but I'll be saving their seeds; tomato plants are waiting to be tossed into the newly refashioned compost pile, I'll probably save some of these seeds too; garlic is planted; there are still a plant and a half worth of garden huckleberries waiting to be picked; and I've planted some spinach and carrots in my cold frame!

That was a crazy long sentence and this garden update already sounds more exciting than I expected. The two big things I'll spend a bit more time talking about are the garden huckleberries and the future spinach and carrots I am growing. First the garden huckleberries!

A few weeks ago I spent a bit of an afternoon picking about twelve cups of garden huckleberries and saw more ladybugs then I had over the whole spring/summer. Then spent a few hours turning it into jelly! I mostly followed this recipe for garden huckleberry preserves from Tyrant Farms and am a definite fan of the flavor of a cooked garden huckleberry!

I didn't take any photos of the finished jelly (it looks like jelly), but one notable thing about garden huckleberries (or at least my garden huckleberries) is the purple color is amazingly vibrant, it almost looks like artificial color. Someone needs to dye fabric or eggs or make a lip stain with this stuff!

On to the other topic: my tiny seedlings! As I stated earlier, I planted a few spinach and carrot seeds in my cold frame. They are starting to sprout! Check out these tiny seedlings:

I'm not sure if those are the spinach (I think they are), but will find out soon enough when they grow up a bit. I'm looking forward to eating them! This may be my last garden update for the year I will see how the spinach and carrots grow before I know if another post is in order.