Soaking in "Almost" Summer

Summer comes late here in the North Country

We’re in that special time of year where it’s not quite summer, but it no longer quite feels like spring. There’s life EVERYWHERE but temperatures are still cool, and every breeze is perfumed by flowers.

Around every corner, there’s something to discover…

Though it is technically, in a pure astrolonomical sense, it’s nearly the first day of summer, actual “summer” comes late here in the North.

Spring comes late too, and our first buds don’t break until right around April 20th, a full month after the official “first day of spring.”

We like to say that every season comes a month late, except for winter.

Spruce tips are a late spring treasure here in Vermont, but they’re around in late winter or early spring in other places.

It’s good in a way, it feels like it gives us extra time to enjoy what’s here, while the rest of the world rushes on to the next season.

We just finished harvesting spruce tips, and this year I made spruce tip jelly and tea. I didn’t quite get to spruce beer this year, but next hopefully.

And next year I’ll be talking about spruce tips on the blog, posting the recipes early in the season when it’s spruce tip season for the rest of the world (and well in advance if you happen to live in a cold climate like ours).

In the meantime, you can make spruce tip jelly using the same recipe that I use for floral jellies, replacing the flower petals with fresh (or frozen) spruce tips. Spruce tip tea can be made like pine needle tea, and the nutritional benefits are similar, though the flavor is dramatically different (more like bright citrus with a hint of lemongrass).

Spruce Tip Tea

Beyond spruce tips, I’ve been working with Black Locust Flowers (Robinia pseudoacacia) as they finish up their season. They’re considered invasive in many places, though the trees themselves are carpeted with flowers that feed the bees each spring.

The tree itself is valuable and has incredibly rot-resistant wood that was used to make fence posts back in the day. They say they’ll last 40+ years without signs of degrading. These days, they’re used to make natural rot-resistant deck wood.

Permaculture enthusiasts love them because they fix nitrogen in the soil, and can grow just about anywhere.

The wood is high in BTUs, and the trees coppice readily so you can cut them over and over and they’ll just keep coming. (This is one of the ways we use them.)

Really, a wonderfully useful tree…but invasive nonetheless.

Like many invasives (autumn olive, barberry, Japanese knotweed, etc), we despise them because we can’t stop them from growing…rather than seeing the gifts they bring and harvesting without a worry about destroying their resilient selves.

Though useful, most parts of the tree are not edible, with the exception of the fragrant, sweet blossoms. They taste like fresh spring peas when just picked.

Forager Chef has some really inventive savory ways to use them, both fresh and cooked. They have the unique property (at least among edible flowers) of handling cooking well, and tasting like a vegetable in stir-fries.

We made jelly with the fragrant blooms, and I was pleasantly surprised by the flavor. When warmed in tea and with a splash of lemon juice, the color turns a vibrant red/pink, and their flavor changes to that of fresh strawberries!

There’s some hidden magic for you.

(Again, use my generic flower jelly recipe for this, it works with edible any flower, herb, leaf, plant…whatever!)

I was so happy with this one that I actually posted a specific recipe for Black Locust Jelly to my new canning site, CreativeCanning.com

I have SO MANY canning recipes that sometimes I feel like they’re completely taking over Practical Self Reliance so I started a new canning site so I can post the really unique ones (without completely eclipsing the other self-reliance content, and becoming that weird jam lady that also talks about permaculture sometimes).

Don’t worry, the canning stuff isn’t going away, far from it. With a new outlet, there’s more room for even more recipes.

I just put up a detailed tutorial on pressure canning chicken, and tried a number of new ways that I hadn’t before. Working with bone-in meat for canning is a really unique experience, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well the pressure-canned chicken legs came out.

The meat was incredibly tender, and the skin crisped up perfectly when fried in a bit of either lard, schmaltz, or duck fat in a pan. (You really want to use animal fats here, as vegetable oils won’t crisp skin nearly as well.)

Next time, once things are a bit greener, I hope to give y’all a look at our gardens and what we have growing this year. Lots of old standards that fill our larder of course, but also some new fun experiment crops to keep things interesting.

Until then, stay curious, and I hope you find a few hidden gems hiding in plain sight that surprise, amaze, and inspire you.

A teeny tiny baby monarch caterpillar hiding on a young milkweed plant

Until Next Time,

Ashley at Practical Self Reliance