Home grown

Yumminess in a bowl, just picked, and sitting on my lap. Our kids are home grown. So is some of our food. My salads are. Karen had a very thought provoking post in her blog about cooking a meal from local food weekly. Check it out.

Our dessert was home grown strawberry shortcake. All 6 cups of sliced strawberries came from A's garden. That was the only local ingredient, so we made a feeble attempt at "one local meal." I'll think more about the idea before planning future meals.

"A" has had these plants for perhaps seven years, and this is the first time they have produced a measurable quantity. We still have berries left over, and I even gave a pint to my sister when I visited her this morning.

Why are there plenty of strawberries this year? "A" thought there could be two reasons. First, most of the black eyed susans are gone. We gave a bunch of them away over the last two years. They could have been competing with the berry plants. Second, I sprinkled worm castings over everything early this spring. We had a lot of castings from the worms that I got in August 2007 from Arpeggio Farms in Mingo. You can see me crafting the worm bin -- aeration holes. The weather is also probably a factor, and so are the bees.

Ah, the bees. "A" crafted a beehive and got some honeybees on scholarship this year. We are pretty happy with them. Except when they drink the antifreeze that splashed on the neighbor's deck from his overwintered swimming pool pipes. They are fun to watch.

I also wanted to applaud the volunteers in my garden this year -- I spotted two leaf lettuces, two potato plants and one tomato plant. Thank you very much. I'll be busy Saturday with Home Learning Resources. If you can stop and say hello, please do. We can talk about gardening, crafting, or home learning!