Our pick your own

Using "we" in the loosest of terms, we became members at a pick-your-own farm this summer. As anyone who knows me knows, we are huge supporters of local farmers and producers and try very hard to eat local and in season. We have not nearly reached the "almost exclusively" status that we had in Ottawa, but slowly, slowly we are getting there.

I may have already blogged about some of the challenges I experienced at the farm this summer - not the least of which is re-learning when things are ready, rushing to pick and store things when everything is ready at the same time and, as it turns out, inadequate/inappropriate storage at our apartment, meaning I have lost a lot of food I had successfully stored in Ottawa. Sigh. It has also been a bit challenging gardening around work, which was all-consuming this summer, but more than once I found myself lost in the garden for hours. The other thing which I am sure I have mentioned, is how unbelievably large the veggies get here. With near constant sunshine, veggies grow big and they grow fast - meaning the big ones are still edible, but sometimes too big to even try.

Why go to all this work? Why not just eat stuff from the grocery store? Well, my health for one, the local economy for another and, well, I don't know too many Monday night dinners that require 15 minutes prep and look like this. Yum!