Eating Floyd: Classes, Harvesting, Preserving, and the 2013 New River Valley Fair

July has been busy, busy, busy.  Not so much in the garden because for the first time ever since I've lived here we've had too much ongoing rain.  When the warm weather crops flowered it rained and the bees were unable to pollinate as well as they should have so a lot of people are noting that the small green fruits and veg are dropping from the plants.  As it kept raining blights, molds, and mildews came on.  But of course even though the veg and fruit are stunted from the rain, the weeds love it.  When don't the weeds love it?  And since it was difficult to not sink over the tops of your boots in the muddy beds the weeds have had a hey-day.  But all-in-all people are still managing to bring crops in, the farmers markets have some good looking stuff, and I've been buying in, supporting growers who do it better than I do.

Here's what I reaped this month:

Braggin' Rights.

The individual winners from the New River Valley Fair 2013 can be seen on the Canning Competition Winners page.

And then there were classes taught...

Nut Butters and Bean Dips, and Small Vegetable Fermentation were very popular classes and will find their way back into the rotation again.  The fermentation class showed that no matter how old you are, the kindergartener in us all will always appear when scissors, paper punches and plastic containers are involved.  The make and take fermentation jar portion of the class was full of kiddie art class references.

The tomato preservation class was not so popular.  I think that was because I unthinkingly scheduled it during FloydFest weekend and because everyone's tomatoes are doing lousy this year and we're all dispirited about it.  The class was requested and I may run it again next year to see how it flies, just not during Floydfest.

The beginning of the month Michael was off riding his bicycle on the Erie Canal Trail between Buffalo and Albany, NY.  They were beset by rain at night and high humidity during the day but the trip went well and I got to vacation vicariously through the journal-like emails he sent whenever he ran into a WIFI connection.  While he was gone our former renter showed up with 2 pounds of chanterelle mushrooms which I proceeded to dehydrate and our patio peach tree which was loaded with fruit got raided by a raccoon or possum who proceeded to devour the just about ripe fruit and leave the stones for me to find.  They are no longer cute, they're varmints.  Photos to come.

And that's been my month.

Please check the HFPCAC tab for updated August classes.  I have some family business to take care of and the first class of the month, Roll 'Em Easy: Summer Rolls, Dolmades, and Cabbage Rolls has been cancelled and will be rescheduled later.