Eating Local

Treebeard has always believed in providing for his family. When we were first married, we had no money to speak of but we always ate well. Meat came from the woods, fields, and streams and vegetables came from the garden. Things haven't changed much over the past 30 years, Treebeard still puts meat on the table along with homegrown fruits and vegetables. There is nothing quite like stepping out your backdoor and doing a little grazing...

We have three varieties of raspberries and all are putting on fruit. The raspberry plants were a gift from SIL -- thanks, Sis! We have 40 blueberry bushes thanks to our older son and they are all beginning to bear -- thanks, Trekker!
There would be more berries in my hand if not for the greedy pair of summer tanagers nesting nearby...

 

Treebeard covered the bushes with the ripest berries this afternoon.  If you were to walk out to the berry patch you would see a whole lot of chicken wire over the bushes.

 

We've been enjoying salad from the garden for a while now.  The weather in April made getting anything to grow a challenge but Treebeard managed to coax all his varieties of lettuce into growing.

 

The dill is added to salads, eggs and other dishes, but we also grow it for the flowers and for the black swallowtails who love it.  They get their fair share of the parsley, too.

 

The broccoli has been tasty but the recent wet weather has led to an explosion of pests.  We don't like to use any chemicals on our crops so there has been a lot of manual squishing of caterpillars going on.

 

The tomatoes are starting to set fruit, too.  Can't wait for that first tomato sandwich of the season.

 

And the squash vines are starting to coordinate their blooms - finally.  For a while there we would have male flowers but no females, then females but no males.  Now that they have their acts together we'll have squash big enough to pick in another day or two.

 

I'm looking forward to the green beans, butter beans, okra, corn and melons, too. Eating local is a good thing.