New Swap!

We are teaming up with the Woolen Mills Gardeners United to organize our next swap in April.  It will be held at the Woolen Mills Chapel, 1819 East Market Street, Charlottesville, from 1 to 2:30 in the afternoon.
There will be plants and homemade goods galore!

Pickling, Buttering, Jamming and Swapping.

We spent the weekend buttering, pickling and jamming.  In one kitchen we had:

Three batches of cherry butter

A batch of pickled cherries

And a batch of dill pickled cucumbers.

Meanwhile, over in Vikki's kitchen, there were small batches of seedless blackberry jam, plum-honey preserves, dilly beans, pickled blueberries 

spicy pickled cherries, peach-jalapeno jam and cherry vanilla butter.

This is just some of what we are planning on bringing to the next swap, set for Sunday, August 26. You must RSVP to cvilleswaps@gmail.com for location and time.  For ideas on what you can swap, check out our About page at the top of our homepage.  Tell your friends, help us spread the word and we'll see you August 26th!

I got rose jam.

We had our second swap yesterday.  Thanks to everyone that came out.

There were loads of plants to be swapped. 

Begonias, lillies, moneyplant, geraniums, native wildflowers, herbs and raspberries to name a few.

There were seeds and soap and oodles of tasty things to eat like bread and granola and jams and butters and pickles and pesto.  And homemade soda. 

I sort of spaced on taking pictures, so you'll have to be content with the three I did take.

We held it over at McIntire Park.  We'd intended to have it in a shelter, but it was a beautiful day and there was loads going on and the shelters were taken, so we found a picnic table under a tree and that turned out to be a great spot for it.  I'm proud to report that all the orphaned plants found homes today.  I posted all the recipes on my main blog for everyone that requested them as well.

In addition to rose jam and plants, I brought home granola, caramel corn, apple butter, homemade natural soda and vanilla brown sugar peach butter. 

 For everyone that couldn't make it, we'll definitely be having a few more of these in the coming months, so stay tuned for announcements.  See you then!

Next Swap!

Our next swap has been scheduled for Sunday, June 3.  RSVP for details like time and place.  We hope to see you all there!

Swap we did

We had our first swap a few weeks ago, at the Garage, in downtown Charlottesville.  Among the goodies swapped were:

Handmade soap made with coffee grounds and olive oil.

(My husband wants to know if it's edible when he needs a caffeine fix.)

Granola, Caramel Corn (with and without nuts!) as well as an assortment of fruit butters.  I can't wait to try our salted caramel pear butter.

And pickles. 

We definitely learned some things from this, although everyone agreed, we need to do this again.  We'll probably start throwing around dates after the holidays.  It was suggested we include seeds at the next one and I'm game for that. 

Getting close!

Thanks C-Ville for publishing the swap in this week's small bites!
Check it out for yourself here.

First Frost.

First frost means the end of the summer bounty, which was looking scraggly anyway.

Basil, both green and purple become pesto

which freezes beautifully. 

I had no idea I had so many peppers on the Anaheim plant I had out there.  Looks like another batch of pickled peppers are in order.  I'm also going to try my hand at some pepper vinegar with those smaller ones. 

I'm down to my last case of empty canning jars, so while I'm sad to see the season go, it's good to know I captured so much of it in jars to enjoy and swap over the next few months.