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Today's progress on the Halloween costume jacket.

Working on a Halloween costume and getting carried away. I don't have an embroidery machine, using zigzag on my sewing machine to put in details for the sleeves.

Finished using the rest of the apples I picked. I made French Apple Cake from America's Test Kitchen. My first time making it, turned out pretty well, though the apples were very mealy raw. Cooked they turned out fine, but Granny Smiths, as in the original recipe, would probably be even tastier.

Mixing up more compost, cleaning the garden beds before snow and adding finished compost on top. New raised beds to come, this time 12'x4'.

I went to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center today, the animals were out. This might be the first time I've seen a marten alive as I've only seen their pelts. Sitka black tail deer was let out in the enclosure for the first time. Hugo (bear) walked along with us in the bear enclosure.

I got the rest of my cabbage out in the nick of time!

Finally picked the cabbages that didn't get chomped by moose. The larger one is almost 4 pounds! The small one is 1.5 pounds.

Up late jarring carrots. First time pressure cooking this year, though I've been using the pot for water baths to make jams and such. Last year I had chopped the carrots, trying them whole this time.

I'm trying to finish harvesting from my garden. I was working on carrots tonight under some string light in the back of the house. I had one bed picked out and washed then when I heard a creaking clicking sound. I look up to see a bull moose about 50ft n front of me. Left half my carrots.

I dug up the last of my potatoes for the season. About 30lbs in a 5 gallon bucket. Also a handful of tiny carrots. I don't recall planting any white or yellow carrots, so not sure if the orange carrots I planted were deprived of some nutrients in the bed with weeds?

Made green chili using the green tomatoes from last night and a side quest: garlic knots because I saw Jose.elcook on YouTube make them as I was getting the chili ingredients together. The "parsley" on the rolls are carrot greens.

The frost was too long, the greenhouse tomatoes turned translucent. :-( I'm going to try saving them and make a green tomato chili base or something even though I've seen lots say they just need to be tossed. Also cucumbers, peppers and egg plant my parents planted.

Made apple sauce today, 11 pints and 1 8oz jar. I used up most of the apples we picked a week ago.

Our school compost pile! We've been collecting student food waste from lunch in the right side bin and we mixed it with mulch and dry leaves in the center bin.

An acquaintance of mine has apple trees in their yard. They were calling them crabapples, but they are not small round and red like others. Regardless, they were kind enough to invite me to pick them since they don't make use of them. Made apple butter tonight, planning to make another batch.

My first tomatoes! First ones starting to get color from plants I grew from seed. The cute round ones are Sub Arctic tomatoes developed in Fairbanks. Here in South Central I grow them in a green house, but it said you can grow them outside in Fairbanks. The large ones are Early Girl. 3lbs cabbage!

Enjoying more vegetables. The Cosmic Purple carrots have gotten huge! Picked some more potatoes.

I went berry picking at Arctic Valley with a large group on Wednesday. Thursday we cleaned the berries, mostly crowberries/moss berries, some blueberries and a few cranberries/red berries. Blueberries were sorted out to make modern akutaq and the rest were made into easy crowberry pie.

Sandhill Cranes flying around Arctic Valley while I was berry picking.

2lbs 3oz after taking the outer leaves off. I'm pretty pleased with the cabbage I grew. I planted 8 in raised beds, only 4 made it to this stage, the other 4 were just leafy, I guess because I didn't realize I had 2 growing in the same spot.

I went through my potato plants and saw that a bunch were yellow so went around getting rid of the plants for the parties to cure. Then I saw so many slugs eating my potatoes that were near the surface. So I went through and picked potatoes near the surface and got almost 20 pounds!

Some interesting veggies. I love how the Magic Myrna potatoes look, red skin with yellow eyes and flesh. Had a carrot guy and a pair of... Well, if anyone need a pair, I got them.

Anyone have a raspberry bar recipe they like? It was my first time making them, and the raspberry bar recipe I use incorporated some raspberry jam with fresh raspberry. It turned out fine, letting it sit overnight improved the texture and allowed the fruit and jam to firm up

Harvested some potatoes, 42lbs in one raised bed 4'x8'.

Cabbage and pork gyouza made with the cabbage I grew. You can get the recipe from Just One Cookbook website. Pretty tasty. I've made good before, but the version I grew up making didn't have cabbage.

My child picked a lot of raspberries from our yard yesterday and today. Enough to make a pie!

8.5lbs of carrots today and moose visitors

I harvested my first cabbage! Grocery store sized 2lbs 7.5oz. We just had a lot of rain (for our area), I read that a big train can cause cabbage heads to split. I left the smaller ones out, I'll see how they fare tomorrow.

My first time growing cabbage. My largest one is about the size you can find at a grocery store. The others are a little bigger than softballs. Brassicas general do week in Alaska.

Alpine strawberries, so tiny. They finally ripened and just enough for a handful to put over your cereal.

I let my broccoli go to flower accidentally, hoping it would get bigger. The flowers are edible and just taste like broccoli. Cute little yellow flowers, the bees really enjoyed them. We enjoyed them on our kale quinoa salad.

South Central Alaska, a could weeks later than last year, but the peas are ready! Over a pound of snap peas from one 4x8 raised bed today. Plenty more left to grow.

My carrots have grown! We did a taste taste and I thought they'd be carroty because we haven't had a frost yet, but all were sweet, though the cosmic purple were a bit radishy. Scarlet Nantes, Little Fingers, Danvers and Cosmic Purple.

Another batch of raspberry jam. I have one more bag of just raspberry juice in the freezer, but that'll have to wait until this year's raspberries are ripe.

Continuing to help make some more space in my parents' freezer, raspberry jam. I used a reduced sugar recipe by Sure Jel, which is still plenty sweet.

Blueberry jam! Trying to clear out the freezer, specifically my parents' freezer. These are wild blueberries that were picked a year or two ago. Wild blueberries make for a much darker jam than the blueberries we get from the grocery store.

First kale harvest, over a pound from 3 plants. My favorite kale salad is called Kenai Kale Quinoa: kale dressed in lemon vinegrette, quinoa, feta cheese, chicken, pine nuts and golden raisins. This is my copy cat version.

I made a successful loaf of shokupan, Japanese style white bread, just using an American 9x5in bread pan. Very tender, has a nice pull to it when you bite into it. I got the recipe from Just One Cookbook, a food blog with many Japanese recipes.

I made whoopie pies for the first time, the center was too sweet, probably should have applied a thinner layer of creme. There just was so much of the creme I thought I needed to lay it on thick. Nice and soft chocolate cake type sandwich. I was inspired to make it after seeing Dylan Hollis on YT.

I have a green house my father constructed last year to grow tomatoes. In south central Alaska it's not quite warm enough to grow them outside in my limited experience. I started cultivars developed in Fairbanks, but the "Early Girl" hybrid (not AK variety) does indeed fruit the earliest.

Finished thinning carrots, the greens can be used like parsley and have a similar smell and flavor. Carrots are related to parsley, I just don't use it much. Some of the thinned carrots are big enough to snack on or add to a salad.

Using up lemons and strawberries from other canning projects to make strawberry lemonade concentrate. Very tasty!

Lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, spinach and peas! Food is growing in South Central Alaska, zone 4ish. My first year growing broccoli, cabbage and spinach. Spinach has been very successful, we'll see if the broccoli grows big enough to be worth it.

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam. This is my second batch, it went better than the first batch that I tried a 4x recipe and foamed all over the place. I guess I have to do this in single recipe batches to save myself from cleaning the stove and scraping burned jam.

Sunshine Rhubarb juice concentrate from the "Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving". I finished making it late evening. It's a lovely pink, a shade darker than pink lemonade. One part this and one part water, tonic water or ginger ale. It's not terribly sweet, I'd vote for Ginger ale or Sprite mix.

Kale looks ready to pick, the Chard needs some more time. More salads ahead!

Strawberry rhubarb pie filling. I got 6 jars.

Rhubarb syrup! My first time making it. Last year I made rhubarb strawberry pie filling. Rhubarb tastes good on its own (with sugar). Plenty of phone left to make a batch of pie filling later.