Strawberry Jam

Strawberries are ready for picking here in Green Bay so today I went to Sunny Hill and picked a flat of them. It was overcast, the berries plump and ripe both which made for pleasant picking and even better eating.

When I got home I put up 5 pints of strawberry jam and froze the rest to use in smoothies. The strawberry jam is very easy to make by following the instructions in the Sure Gel package.

Strawberry jam on the cooling rack

And since I had the water heated up to do the water bath for the strawberry jam I decided to make some BBQ sauce. I have a recipe that I found on the internet years ago that is supposed to be a knock off of KC Masterpiece - my favorite. I don't think the sauce tastes like KC Masterpice, however, it is better! This is also an easy recipe that just requires combining the ingredients, simmering on the stove for an hour and then putting them into jars with a 45 minute water bath.

BBQ Sauce

Garlic scapes

The garlic planted last October in the garden is growing well. The garlic scapes were at the point of needing to be removed. The scapes are removed so the plant will put more energy into the garlic bulbs and not into creating the scpaes (seeds). I've been told the scapes can be using in cooking but haven't used them myself. An interent search turned up a few interesting looking recipes.

Garlic scapes before being removed

Growing Hops

I'm growing hops to use in our home brewing process. Below are a couple of pictures of the progress of the vines. Hops vines grow 20 to 30 feet per year. I planted them on the south side of the house under the eves. Then put in twine from the ground to the underside of the eves on the second story. The hops have already reached the eves and, in some cases, have grown another 6 feet hanging down.

The variety I'm growing is "Mt Hood". Good for making honey wheat beer.

This picture was taken April 15.

These pictures were taken June 15.

Garden Pictures

Below are a few pictures of the flowers currently in bloom in my garden. Enjoy.

Iris

Portfolio Management June 2009

My investment club met last night (Jun 8, 2009). We reviewed two new stocks and followed our portfolio management process. The overall shape of the portfolio is better than it has ever been so we decided to:

Sell our remaining holding in Lowes (LOW). The stock was our lowest PAR (percentage average return) and we didn't think the future looked good for the stock.

Buy additional shares of Fastenal (FAST). We purchased the stock a month or two ago and it still looks good and did not have a "full" position yet.

Buy an initial position in Apollo Group (APOL) with the $$ from the sale of Lowes. Apollo seemed to be the best company in the education group. We also considered Strayer and ITT.