Category Archives: My Life

Garden to table

The good news: I survived the potato harvest and garden day on Monday.

The bad news: We have A LOT of potatoes in the ground still.

The good news: Those potatoes look much better after Matthew completed some hard core weeding.

I experienced extreme soreness (mostly in my quads, from all the squatting) and serious exhaustion from blueberry picking on Saturday and wasn’t sure that I would make it through the garden blitz on Monday.  Somehow, I did.

We started the day with a quick stop by the inner garden (AKA our bed at the community garden).

Beets and carrots at our inner garden

Next up, THE garden (AKA the commuter garden in the ‘burbs).  We harvested potatoes from the dead or nearly dead plants and left the rest to grow a bit longer, hoping to increase our yield.  We followed that with some general maintenance, including weeding and mulching.

Left to right: winter squash, peppers (somewhat hidden), tomatoes

After working all morning, I headed into Pam’s kitchen to make a garden-to-table lunch.

Clockwise from top: Sauteed summer squash with garlic, pasta with basil pesto, roasted tricolor potatoes with dill, steamed Swiss chard with olive oil.  Pretty much everything on the plate came from our garden, most of it picked that morning — good fuel for a day of hard work!

We’re giving a garden tour to some family members this weekend.  Won’t they be surprised when we hand them shovels and pitch forks and point them in the direction of the potato patch!  Hands-on tours are the best kind, right?

Red, white, and blueberry

For the past couple of summers, we placed our order for blueberries and sour cherries on my MIL’s annual trek to Michigan.  We enjoyed the fruit throughout the year, though with a nagging feeling of unrest, because we knew that the orchard owners sprayed their fruit — not exactly in line with our usual choices.

Berries rank high on the list of produce with high levels of pesticide residue.  While convenient, delicious, and affordable, our purchases were bad for our bodies and the environment.

With a little investigative work, we found a no-spray blueberry farm within an hour of St. Louis.  Yesterday, we drove out to Huckleberry Hollow for a pick-your-own adventure.

Some of the blueberry bushes were over six feet tall — I had no idea they could get that big!  We had fun, but we also worked really hard and still fell short of our target quantity for freezing.

Today, I’m suffering the effects of picking 9 gallons of blueberries (2-person effort) over 5.5 hours, only the first few of which exhibited something like pleasant temperatures.

Suddenly, the price of blueberries at the farmers’ market, pre-picked blueberries, seems pretty darn reasonable.  It’s easy to walk through a farmers’ market and turn your nose up at the prices, but when you start getting your hands dirty, those prices make sense.  Growing food in a sustainable manner is hard work!

Happy 4th of July!

Garden confessional

A few weeks ago, for my own sanity, I opted out of the commuter gardening.  I needed a break.  I’m still taking that break, but the garden and master gardener are going full tilt.  I’m going to take a break from my break this weekend in order to help with the potato harvest.  Goodness knows, we’ll need all the help we can get.  Last year we planted 15 pounds of potatoes and harvested 200 pounds.  This spring we planted 40 pounds of potatoes — you do the math!

Fleet maintenance

I’ve always been a practical shoe kind of girl, but it took Matthew’s urging to get me into Birkenstocks.  Before I tried Birks, I never realized that, no matter how “comfortable” the shoe, pretty much all shoes are not shaped like feet.  The toe area should really be the widest part of the shoe, not the narrowest!

My feet carry me lots of miles, both walking and pedaling, and I want that to continue for a long time.  And I don’t want bunions!  Foot shaped shoes equal healthy, happy feet 🙂

I own two pairs of sandals and one pair of clogs.  Add in Matthew’s, and we have quite the collection.

On the green side, these shoes can be re-soled, so you can keep a pair around for awhile.  I pulled our fleet out a couple of weeks ago to carry out some preventive maintenance on the cork foot beds.  Buying durable goods and making them last is a good green investment.

Summer eats and treats — Part 2

Tom and Jo invited us to dinner on Sunday night.  Grilled pizza was on the menu — a summertime classic! 

My pizza contribution involved a combo of homemade pizza sauce and pesto as the base, topped with red bell peppers, mushrooms, onions, and walnuts.  Tom suggested the walnuts, and they added a lovely crunch.  I added some small pieces of fresh mozzarella, keeping it low cheese.
 And for dessert, homemade ice cream sandwiches, featuring triple chocolate cookies and strawberry ice cream!  As we feasted, a summer storm rolled in, and we’re finally getting some relief from the heat.  Ah, summer.