Food...Local, Local, Local!

Although we've had a garden for years, Dan is usually the one who does all the work with the garden, turning it over, planting, watering, harvesting, etc. Well, this year I've decided I should be more invovled, especially if I want to figure out how much we need to store for the winter.

Our garden has gotten larger over the years. It started out as a small 6ftx6ft plot. (Thats when it was my idea). And this too was a project that I got away from as I was busy with kids, etc.

Now we grow all kinds of things in it, but its still not enough by itself to preseve food for a whole winter. In addition to the garden, we also have fruit trees (peaches, plum, apple, and a sour cherry tree), but the peach trees are dying, and I'm not sure why. Interestingly enough, a peach tree took root right outside our kitchen, off the deck. We used to dump our scraps off the deck into the ground cover out there. A peach seed must have germinated out there, and now we have a producing tree, right outside the kitchen!

In addition to the fruit trees, we have raspberry bushes and blueberry bushes, and a strawberry patch. The raspberry bushes eclipsed the blueberries and strawberries this year so we didn't get as many strawberries as we have in the past, but still had quite a few. Very few blueberries though. Dan is planning on moving the raspberry bushes to the border of the property. Besides their hogging the sunlight, there are some other reasons for this. First, the dogs need a border so they don't take off past the invisible fence. The fence works well UNTIL someone else is walking their dog out there. It used to be just a field out there, and the dogs aren't used to seeing people walking around out there, so they think they are defending their hunting grounds. They used to hunt groundhogs together out there.

The other reason is just so people don't go wandering into our yard to pick the fruit, etc. That fruit has become mighty important to us as grocery prices have skyrocketed!

Since I can't preserve all that we need from the garden and fruit trees/bushes alone, I'm also looking around for 'pick your own' farms. This week I'm hoping to get to a farm within an hour's drive to get some blueberries picked. We love blueberries so I'm hoping to pick about 50 or 60lbs.

It might actually be cheaper to buy the blueberries frozen on sale at the grocery store BUT who knows where those were grown or how. And I believe in supporting the local farmers and local economy. So, I'm going to put my hat on and go a-pickin instead. I may have to drive between 1/2hr to an hour, so the gas makes them more expensive overall, at least more than they would be if they were in my backyard, but we can't do *everything* all at once. We'll get more growing over time. For now, we have to support our local farmers instead.

And folks...please DO remember to use cloth grocery bags. Every little step you can take makes a difference.