Cherry Berry

Every mom has certain “firsts” that they look forward to. Of course, there are the obvious: first smile, first step, first word… but I think there are also firsts that may only be special to us and no one else. For me, living on a cherry farm, one of those firsts that I looked forward to was the day that I would get to pick and share a bowl of cherries with my girl.

July 1st is the big official opening day for Pick Your Own Cherries around here, so yesterday, before things got busy, I took advantage of the ripe cherries. We picked, washed and pitted a few and then headed outside with a blanket, some wipes and a baby stripped down to nothin’ but her gitches. I put her in a disposable so we wouldn’t have to worry about getting any stains on her diaper covers and away we went. The only thing I forgot was to get myself into nothing but a diaper – sure, she escape the stains, but I didn’t.

I set her down and let her start exploring the wonderful world of sweet cherries.

Within 2.3 seconds, the scene looked like. Who needs a hat? Forget the bowl! This is serious business.

She played around with them, squashing them between her fingers for a few minutes, until finally, she ventured to taking a bite.

That bite was quickly followed by an, “Mmm” as she reached down and tried to grab the rest of the pile another cherry.

I’m pretty sure more of the cherries ended up between her fingers and dripping down her chin than in her tummy, but who cares? We had fun.

If she thinks this is good, just wait until next week when she gets to try her Momma’s homemade chocolate cherry chip ice cream.

Happy Canada Day to my fellow Canadians! And Happy Independence Day to those of you south of the border. Enjoy your holiday weekend!

We’re off…

Her Garden Grows

Due to the prolific amount of baby-related posts, you may think that I’ve completely forgotten how to think, say, or do anything that doesn’t have to do with my kid. And, I mostly have. But, thanks to my dear husband, we’re back into the swing of gardening. Our garden has been planted for about a month, but it’s taken me this long to finally snap some pics and get a post together. Forgive the quality of these photos, all I had with me was hubby’s iPhone.

Due to the extremely rainy and cold spring (if you can even call it spring), we were pretty late getting things planted. Most years things are quite a bit ahead of where they are now and we’re usually already eating lettuce. But, such is the way with gardening. Things will catch up. I’m already astounded at how quickly everything’s growing.

So, here you have it. Our 2011 garden. The garden itself is no bigger than it was last year, but we ended up planting the zucchini, squash and cucumber - crawling plants that take a ton of room – in a different area to leave more space the main garden.

That sexy, shirtless garden boy that you can just barely see in the corner? He comes with the garden.

First up we’ve got potted herbs (oregano, chives and basil), radish, beets, onions, lettuce, carrots, turnips, leeks, and strawberries. And holy – talk about strawberries. So far, we’ve picked upwards of 25 qts of berries. We’ve been eating them like crazy, C and I made a ton of jam, I’ve made/eaten/frozen strawberry pies, and also frozen a bunch of bags of whole berries. I’m actually kind of getting sick of them. Gasp.

Below we have …. Top left: potatoes. Bottom left: green beans. Center/top right: tomatoes (many varieties). Middle right: red and green pepper. Bottom right: okra. We were given a bunch of starter tomato plants and weren’t sure of all the labels so also bought a few plants to ensure we had what we’ll need for salsa and canning. And, um, we now have like 30 tomato plants. So, locals, prepare yourself for tomato-palooza 2011 when they get ripe. I’ll be forcing them down your throats. Heck, maybe even the non locals should get prepared. Tomatoes would hold up well in the mail, wouldn’t they?

We planted enough for 70-80 lbs of potatoes, so get ready for those, too. This is the first year we’ve planted okra from seeds because I couldn’t find any starter plants so my fingers are crossed. Me needs fried okra all summer long!

Like I said, we planted our crawlers in a different area. The first row of orchard by the garden (um, hello, cherry farm!) has had a number of trees taken out, so there are a few strips of open ground. This year Evan turned up some of that area to do some more planting. Two rows of sweet corn, acorn, butternut, buttercup and spaghetti squash, zucchini, and cucumber. These plants are doing amazingly well so far.

And of course, I can’t leave my first garden post of the year without showcasing the cherries. Of course, they aren’t in the garden, and they don’t even belong to us, but we love them nonetheless. They aren’t quite ripe but if you look closely you may find a couple on a tree that are ready. Last night, I enjoyed my first two the season.

As always, I’m looking forward to a season chalk full of fresh produce, baking, canning and preserving. I’m pretty sure I’ll have to ship Evalyn off and devote the entire month of August to taking care of all of this.

Bring on the salsa!

Summer Dreams…

My good blog bud, Erica, is hosting a link up asking everyone to compile a list of the top 10 things they want to do this summer. She’s a teacher and she used this activity with her first graders and figured it would be fun to bring it to blogland. So, here I am.

1. Put my daughter in a sundress, shorts, a tank top – anything really. Seriously. Here we are, May 17th and she has been able to be outside wearing short sleeves once so far. I took her to the doctor and grocery shopping today. And guess what? She had to wear a hat. And I had to tuck a blanket around her in the car seat. So, yes. My number one goal for the summer is to dress her in summer clothes.

2. Enjoy our garden and the crops around us to the fullest potential. This includes canning peaches, pears, salsa, beets, dill pickles, perhaps some jam and eating delicious, home grown meals every night.

3. Travel 8 hours up north to visit my family for our family reunion. This will be Eva’s first BIG road trip. The longest she’s done is 5 hours, way back when she was 7 weeks old. She does great on the 1.5 hour trips to my parent’s place and the 3 hour trips to E’s parents house, so here’s hoping!

4. Go on a family vacation with E & E. Planning is in the works! We’re hoping to go camping and spend a few days in our capital city.

5. Celebrate with my in-laws as we watch my sis in law, Amy, marry the love of her life.

6. Go swimming with my little as much as humanly possible. We’ve got friends and family with pools who have extended invitations to us and we will take advantage of that. Aunt Shelley – watch out … here we come!

7. Make ice cream. Lots and lots of ice cream. Eat said ice cream.

8. Celebrate our fifth anniversary. That’s half a decade, dudes.

9. Re-do the dining room which will include refinishing our hutch, a table and chairs set, and making a toy area for Evalyn. (Okay, so I technically won’t be doing much on this one, per say. But I will be supervising).

10. Enjoy the sun. Enjoy being outside. Enjoy the garden. Enjoy the park. Enjoy my husband. Enjoy my girl. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.

There ya have it. The top 10 things I want to do this summer. Granted, these things all require summer actually arriving. Which doesn’t look likely at this point (see #1). But I can hope.

Now go over to Erica’s and link up with your own list!

Dreaming…

With a few warm(ish), semi-Spring like days popping up here and there I’ve started dreaming.

Of this…

And this…

And this…

So we can eat meals that look like this…

And do things like this …

Perhaps we’ll even add a few more of these to our family…

Oh how I’m dreaming.

The View From Here

When I went out to the garden on Monday after being away for a week, I quickly discovered why people who garden should not take holidays in the middle of July. There weeds are going crazy and I had some gigantic cucumbers and zucchinis! Here is what I picked:

Here's a picture of the way the garden looked on Monday:

Things are definitely getting big! The Fabulous Dude didn't get a chance to go check it out until Tuesday evening and when he did, he was shocked at how big some of the plants are. We have spent some time weeding it this week, but it's still kind of a mess. So please excuse our poor garden maintenance.

Our tomato plants are quite full of fruit and I am desperately waiting for them to ripen! There is nothing, nothing, nothing like fresh tomatoes!

I don't have any more pictures to show of the garden from this week so I will just tell you what else is going on ....

We've been eating delicious potatoes like crazy, and I've used some for twice baked potatoes for the freezer. We've also been eating Swiss chard, lettuce, beet tops, green onions, purple onions, beans, zucchini, and cucumber. We also had a few roasted beets the other night that were delicious. I tried pulling a few of the white turnips but they were gross. I guess they aren't ready just quite yet. We've picked a few okra, so I'm planning to cook them up tonight. Both the acorn and butternut squash plants have a ton of blossom on them and even a few good sized squash growing. We're going to have more zucchini than we know what to do with over the next little while and our yellow summer squash should be ready by next week. There are a few green peppers that are almost ready to pick as well.

If you live close to me and you want any zucchini, cucumber, peppers or tomatoes, please just let me know!

The View From Here #4

We are officially eating from the garden! We've been enjoying fresh lettuce, radish (at least the Dude has - I think they are tres yuck), Swiss chard, beet tops, green onions, potatoes, beans, and cucumber.

Here is my first pickin' of beans and cucumber ....

Yes the beans are purple. They magically turn green as they cook, neat eh?

My supper the other night looked something like this ... almost all compliments of the garden. A big green salad featuring lettuce, cucumber, onion, and radish from the garden (only the carrots and tomatoes were not), a baked potato (shh ignore the sour cream) from the garden and beans from the garden.

Within the next week or so I predict that I will have a few peppers, more cucumbers, hopefully a picking of Okra, and lots of zucchini. Then I will be sorry.

I started to think about how/when I'm going to get to do all the preserving and canning that I want to do. I think I have finally resigned myself to the fact that I likely won't be able to get as much done this year. As much as I am going to try, I realized that much of the canning - salsa and tomatoes in particular, was done at the very end of August and into September of last year. I'll keep my fingers crossed that I can still get some done, but I am just going to try to relax and tell myself it's okay to just get done whatever I can. If all else fails, I will just stick the tomatoes and peppers into the freezer as is and make them into salsa later in the year, and make the tomatoes into diced tomatoes as I need them. And as for the other things, like BBQ onion sauce, jam, red pepper relish, and so on - I figure they are just extra things that are nice to have during the year but we will likely survive the winter without them if I don't get a chance to make as much this year.

If you live close by me, don't be surprised if I start unloading my veggies on you later in the summer when I am too hot and too pregnant to do anything with them!

Here are a few pictures of what we've got growing now ....

There are many many more beans on their way...

Onions are large and in charge. The red onions should be ready soon.

Some hills of potatoes are ready to be dug. We dug one on the weekend and got nearly 20 potatoes. We are going to have tons! But I cannot even begin to describe how delicious they are. The FD says, "Just wait until you try the red ones"

Peppers

Tomatoes are beginning to flourish!

There are lots of cucumbers growing on the plants. I know it sounds weird because cucumbers don't taste like a whole lot ... but the difference in taste between a store bought cuc and a garden fresh cuc is astronomical. I wanted to eat the entire thing all at once. So delicious!

Acorn and butternut squash

Okra! One of the things I look forward to most.

The zucchini plants are also about to go wild

God is good, all the time, all the time, God is good.

The View From Here #3

Things in the garden are growing like weeds. Um, literally. There are quite a few weeds out there. So please just ignore those in the photos.

This week we will get to start enjoying some of the veggies - lettuce, swiss chard, beet tops, radishes, and onions are all ready! We may even get to harvest some baby potatoes. My fingers are crossed.

I'm not sure why but blogger keeps rotating some of my pictures, so I apologize in advance if anyone gets a sore neck while reading this post from craning to see them the right way.

The cucumber plant is growing so well, with a number of blossoms starting to show.

Some kind of squash - I've lost track of what's what.

This poor little acorn squash isn't doing so well. I'm hoping that there's still a chance.

Here you can see the okra, turnips, and some of the tomatoes. Everything is going strong. I am soooo looking forward to fried okra!

Turnips

Beets

Tomatoes - many of the plants are showing blossoms but I have yet to spy an actual tomato growing.

Our very first peppers of 2010! Yay!

The potato plants are massive. Hopefully this week we'll have a chance to dig a few up.

Beans - starting to blossom.

Swiss chard and lettuce.

The onions are ready to be dug!

Zucchini ... I don't know if I'm quite prepared for the onslaught of zucchini that's coming my way.

And a picture of the whole garden ...

Hopefully the next time I post a View From Here post, it will include some chitter chatter about what I've made/eaten from the garden. Until then, happy growing!