Rosa and I tried to go strawberry picking at a U-Pick this week, but it didn't work out. Their strawberries were tiny and once you cut off the tops and the some of the seed-condensed bottoms there wasn't anything left. I know the weather has been weird, but my strawberries at home are much better. However, there will never really be enough for our smoothy-granola-waffle needs. I'm going to rip out more flower/weed space and give it to more baby strawberries this week.
So, IGA has a great deal on strawberries this week. $1/pound. Apples are always my cost basis for cheap fruit, and right now these strawberries are cheaper than apples. I bought 16 pounds and got to work.
Now we have frozen strawberries, dried strawberries and some awesome strawberry sauce. Unfortunately we don't have any strawberries for snacking on so I may have to go back today for more.
Laura and I made some sauerkraut as well, which is fermenting in the basement.
And we dried herbs (peppermint, chives and oregano) and I dried spinach last week. That's an experiment. The spinach hadn't really bolted yet, but it was about to and we can't eat that much salad. Once you blanch it, I always find there's nothing left. So it was either feed it all to the chickens or try drying it. Then I can crumble it into noodles or pasta sauce or soup.
Beans are starting this week. I picked my first meal today. Yay! And there is one tray of raspberries in the freezer with more coming every day. OFRE is just gearing up as well, so hopefully I'll manage to get some cherries this year and more raspberries. I always run out of raspberries.
I love all this processing. It's great to see my stock increase again instead of steadily depleting. What's coming out of your garden lately?
2 comments:
happy harvesting!
Dried spinach is awesome - I did that last year, and it was great on omelettes and in soups and such.
My garden is a pretty sorry thing - though the quack grass is getting under control, the potatoes are doing well, and there are a few bean plants poking up their heads. I should go to the farmers' market and see what's available!
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