Strawberry Picking 2010

A little late (since we went about a month ago) but I thought I'd post this years pictures from our trip strawberry picking.  This year I took a day off from work and we dropped Christopher off at daycare before heading up to Independence.  We managed to get our strawberries picked just before the storms rolled in.  They were behind on picking them because we have had so much rain that a lot of them were overripe.  We ended up with about 10 1-cup containers of freezer jam and the rest were eaten.

Getting ready to walk out to the fields:

I think I picked enough mommy!

Finally finished - just as the thunder started!

Do you think she ate any??

First Garden Harvest

We've had a ton of rain this year and I was beginning to believe that the garden was going to fizzle out like our garden did last year.  Up until Friday, I had picked and tossed 5 or so zucchini which were rotting where they touched the ground.  We've had a couple of nice and HOT days and when Madeleine and I checked it out after work on Friday we were pleasantly surprised:

Between Friday night and this morning we ended up with 15 cucumbers, 8 zucchini/summer squash, one eggplant, 2 jalapenos and 2 cherry tomatoes.  I think pickles (although my dill died) and some zucchini bread are on the horizon. 

One of the potatoes - my 'test vegetable' of the year:

Pickling cucumber.  At least I think it is.  I planted one pickling cucumber and one regular that I THOUGHT was a bush cucumber, meaning (in my mind) grows on a bushy plant.  The two cucumber plants have spread out everywhere and are attaching themselves to everything else.

A green pepper that is supposed to be red.  Had to convince Madeleine we couldn't pick this one yet.

My one eggplant.

Christopher checking out the squash.  At least he didn't take a bite out of one like Madeleine did the first time she saw one.