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| Goose Spit Park At Low Tide |
I made crock pot chili yesterday which we ate for dinner, froze some and still had some leftovers from which we are making chili tacos for dinner tonight. Yesterday we spent two hours hacking down some of the overgrown bushes that are at the front of our house. We filled seven of those large paper grass recycling bags full of debris. It looks better but from here on out we must trim at least once in the Fall and once in the Spring. Summer is not the best time to do it due to the heat but frankly, I doubt anything will die as a result as landscaping grows like crazy here.
Last year I was contemplating planting a garden here. Now I am not so sure. I have a hard enough time keeping up with the grass/weeding/landscaping we already have. That plus the earwigs and other bugs have eaten all of my flowers (last year petunias, this year dahlias) except the marigolds. Next year I will just plant a whole boatload of marigolds in varying colors. I have some potted tomato plants on the back patio and they even went to town on some of those leaves, which normally don't taste that great to bugs. They ate all the leaves off my dill (although it seems to be coming back) and have even tasted some of the hot pepper plant leaves. I am not so sure a garden would survive. I might be better off saving my time, energy and money for good local produce.
In a couple of weeks time the zillions of blackberry bushes here will have ripened and we will pick and freeze as much as we can get our hands on. Last winter I ran out of blackberries in January so this year we will pick even more. We mostly use them for pancakes and muffins, but have also added them to pies. Mom made two years worth of blackberry jam for the whole family last year and we still have cases of that to keep us happy, although we have been eating less of it since we gave up bread. Bring on free food season!
Love free food.....who doesn't right? lol
ReplyDeleteAs soon as we get back from the road trip I'll be hitting a local farm for bushels of maters. Hubs got me another dozen qt. canning jars Sunday.....ah, true love....not me, he loves maters. lo
I like cooking with tomatoes but hubby just loves fresh ones. Fortunately they seem to be leaving the actual tomatoes alone.
DeleteI love jam on pancakes vs maple syrup and a dollop of jam inside a muffin is a great surprise kind of like a filled donut! My sister makes a chicken dish where she puts in a tablespoon of jam at the end...she usually uses apricot but I know I would like blackberry! And the best of all is using jam as a filling in a layer cake..yumm!
ReplyDeleteI read this and now I feel like making jam filled cupcakes! Mom used to make bran muffins with homemade jam in the middle - the only way she could get us to eat bran.
DeleteI was just talking to my husband about a garden for next year but like you, we have such a hard time keeping up with the weeding and lanscaping as it is. It's SO hot and humid here in the South USA. My husband hasn't been able to do yard work in like 2 years because of his back. Now that his back is 80% fixed and he's recovering still, he had this bright idea to go out in the front yard in June and RIP out almost EVERY single bush because they were SO overgrown, half dead and loaded with weeds. We get weeds here that grow as tall as some small trees. Well, he hurt his back doing it and had to hold off on it. Now? The front of my house is all pulled apart and there are HUGE tree weeds growing all in the place of the bushes. :( Can't win.
ReplyDeleteGardens are so much work. If I do have one I think I am going to start small so in case it doesn't work out I will not have so much invested. We shall see.
DeleteMy son wanted to plant a garden this year as well. Unfortunately we have been over run by rabbits since spring. Garden would never have made it. Beautiful pic bt the way.
ReplyDeleteHubby found some baby rabbits nearby at my Mom's condo but I haven't seen any at our house - the bugs are bad enough!
DeleteA squirrel has been eating all of my ripe tomatoes. Actually, he just has one bite, & then leaves the tomatoes on my deck. Talk about adding insult to injury - making a mess & destroying my plants!!!
ReplyDeleteYou would think if he was going to eat your tomato he would eat the whole thing. Hopefully you get a few to harvest before the big move.
DeleteWe have to put wire cages around lots of our plants until they get established as we have a rabbit problem, but we are used to it now.
ReplyDeleteThe marigold idea sounds lovely, my husband really loves them (i think he likes the colours!)
If I do plant anything next year I will plant marigolds around them - they say that companion planting is a good idea. We shall see!
DeleteWalking on the beach is such a treat for us. It will never get old. I love picking up shells but I've never been lucky enough to find a sand dollar. They tell me that after a big storm, lots of good stuff comes ashore.
ReplyDeleteThere is a large sand dollar area about an hour away but the beaches near our home rarely have them - they were smaller than others I have seen as well. I have them out drying on the patio right now!
DeleteSounds like a blissful day on the beach. I'd love to live closer to the coast so that I could enjoy it more often. Free food is always awesome :) best of luck picking blackberries!
ReplyDeleteAny day at the beach is definitely a blissful one!
DeleteWoo Hoo for free food season! We don't have any way to get free stuff around here.
ReplyDeleteThere are other berries that I am unfamiliar with that are ripe now, and I have heard of wild plums nearby that I hope to find. Last year I managed to score a whole large box of free apples in the fall from a friend of my Mothers.
DeleteHi CC
ReplyDeletel've had great fun catching up on yours posts! And left comments if you've got time to read them.
My question is: What are sand dollars?
I'm really sorry to hear about your garden plants suffering from earwigs. We've stopped growing brocolli and cauliflower because the caterpillars eat them! So we now grow A LOT of potatoes and onions because at least they survive.
I am very excited about the foraging season coming up !
And last year we found a lovely apple tree that no one was interested in. My parents, in-laws and we really benefited from that bounty-the apples taste like brambleys which are a very expensive apple in the UK. We also picked sloes and made sloe gin which was delicious. We probably won't pick blackberries because we don't like them much.
Isn't it great to get free food?
Sft x
I remember your apple find - hopefully you can go back again this year. I love blackberries, but I love tart, hubby likes them sweeter so favors them more in jam. Cheers!
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