Local Harvest 1

In keeping with our "stuff growing" theme around here, I meant to tell you about the local harvest my friend B. and I are participating in. Community Supported Agriculture is where you buy "shares" of local produce, and receive in-season food from local farmers. Many of them also require that you, the shareholder, put in a certain amount of time on the farm. These are becoming increasingly popular (one might say "trendy") in our area.

Most people do vegetable shares, and although a wider variety of vegetables might be nice, I know that by the end of July I'll be overwhelmed with the vegetables in our garden. Instead, B. and I decided to share a fruit share. I meant to show you photos of what we got every week and tell you what I made with it, but I'm already 6 days behind.

Harvest 1 was cherries. Apparently we almost didn't have a Harvest 1 because of the crazy amounts of rain we got recently. But they managed to get us some cherries. And boy am I glad we're sharing a share with B., 'cause it was a LOT of cherries! We ate about half of them straight up (Little Man liked them but I cut him off when he chewed and swallowed a pit) and last night I made cherry tarts with the remainder. Super-simple: slightly thawed puff pastry, pitted and halved cherries, sugar, lemon juice. Bake at 415 for 15-20 minutes. But since I was too busy eating, I neglected to take a picture.

Here are some leftovers!This week's harvest is also cherries, and they tell us they're more plentiful and better quality due to the recent sunshine. They provided a recipe for fresh cherry bars, which I may have to try this week.

On the home-front, our garden is growing very well. We lost one tomato plant (the taste-test award winner, of course), and one tomato plant is keeping me guessing, but one (the one that's good for tomato pastes and sauces) is growing like gangbusters. I think I'm even pruning it correctly. I pulled about 15 squash plants this weekend that came up all over the place. Everything else is doing well. Beans, peppers, cukes, squash/ zucchini. The potato plants are beautiful.

We have approximately 3 asian lilies that were not killed by children or dogs thus far. Here's one (I took a picture under the assumption that it will get hit by a soccer ball very soon):
Last week our Irises and Knockout Rose were both at their peak, but I took no pictures so you'll have to take my word for it. Oops.

This weekend Little Man and I broke out the swimming pool for the first time. I wasn't sure how he'd feel about it, but it didn't take him long to warm up to it.And if you need me on a weekend for the next month, this is where I'll be.