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| Snow Peas for dinner |
It was actually veggies but, who's counting. Today the children and I harvested the first snow peas and snap peas of the summer. Our garden is finally filling up with all sorts of wonderful fruits and vegetables. It seemed like destiny was determined for me to fail all of Spring. And now with a bowl of produce I feel triumphant and excited that my trials and troubles led to my ultimate success. I will actually produce some vegetables and fruit to put on the table this year, yeah!!
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| "The Jam" |
Recently I took inventory of my preserves and realized that I had put up enough preserves to get us through the cold seasons. I thought for sure we would run out after I had given away so many Christmas gifts of strawberry, blueberry and blackberry preserves. I hadn't realized what unfamiliar territory it was for most people to grow and preserve their own food until I started to give mine away. I notice when I give people a gift I grew, picked and preserved myself they look at me like I'm either a genius or possibly a crazy person. No matter which there is always plenty of gratitude for the treat. But, the gratitude isn't why I do this crazy stuff, it is the sense of connectedness and the thrill I feel when supplying my family and others with the fruits of my labors.
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| Free Range bed anyone? |
We have been contemplating what to do with our ugly lawn in our south facing front yard and my desire to produce more food. We finally made the decision to dedicate it to food production. We wanted to have raised beds and we wanted to make them for free. There seemed so sense in spending money to save money. We had been collecting materials all spring and this past week we were finally ready. We put up 2 raised beds, a 4'X8' and a 3'X4', from wood supplied from our friends, Dawn and Neven, who were adding a second story to their house. We lined them with collected newspaper and lastly filled with our mature compost. In the larger garden bed we planted beets, chard, brussels sprouts and cauliflowers for late fall harvest. The smaller garden bed is for the children's choice of produce. They planted Casper celedon pumpkins, Big Max orange pumpkins and some random pumpkin starts they potted months ago. This was a really easy project I recommend it to anyone. You can complete the beds and have them planted in an afternoon. I also recommend you get rid of some of your lawn it is very liberating. DO IT, DO IT, DO IT!!!!
Thanks for checking my blog out. Have a fruitful summer, actually Veggieful.
