Garden
We finally built a small garden in our back yard. Tearing out grass is hard work!! We do have plans to make a few raised beds next year to increase our gardening space.
Everything we have in our garden was started from seeds, direct sown. We have carrots, red onions, lettuce, mesculin mix, beets, and chard. We had radish, but all of them have been harvested, and I need to plant some more radish seeds. They just grow so quickly!
The chicken wire over our garden is our attempt to keep the cats from using the garden as a catbox. It has worked well, so far.
Our chard plants were heavy with mature leaves and so yesterday I cut off a big pile of the outer leaves, enough to fill 3 produce bags.
The bounty of mother earth
This year, we are signed up for a CSA for the first time. It is something I have considered doing for years, but I always convinced myself that we couldn’t afford it. We are signed up with a local farm (about 15 minutes from us) that practices organic farming (though not certified), and our family’s share cost $450, made in 3 monthly payments. I read Barbara Kingsolver’s phenomenal book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle this past fall, and it really got my mind reeling. I knew that there was no doubt about it: we would be signing up for a CSA this year. Eating as much local foods as possible is important to me.
Here is a photo shoot of our second CSA delivery (the quantity isn’t as big as usual, since our spring was colder than usual):
(ignore the fruit...that came from the grocery store)
we received 3 flats of local berries!!
In addition to the strawberries that were delivered with our CSA, we have been busy picking our own no-spray strawberries! We just picked our last bucket yesterday, bringing our total amount that we picked ourselves to 66 lbs!! I just found a local farm that doesn’t spray their strawberries, and sell their u-pick at 50 cents/pound.
While I have a nice stock of frozen strawberries now for smoothies (in our chest freezer), I have also been busy jamming. I have made so much jam! And, yesterday, I decided to can a batch of strawberry syrup. Here’s a photo shoot of my cabinet. The jars are doubled stacked, and three deep.
We will be picking raspberries on Wednesday, and soon the blueberry season will start. Blackberries and marionberries are also on our summer picking schedule.
