Strawberry Pickin'

Now that we’re in Washington, we miss our garden that we left behind in Utah. This year we planted tomatoes, peppers, cucumber, zucchini not to mention all of various berry plants & bushes. Sad that we won’t be able to be there to reap the rewards of all the hard work planting & weeding we’ve put in so far this year (fortunately we do have neighbors taking care of it).

Joseph & I like gardening for a number of reasons, but most importantly, because we can make our kids work. Work is healthy for kids & we believe they usually don’t get enough of it (not like in the good old days, I tell ya!).

Luckily, my father-in-law, Franklin, has a huge garden. More like a small farm. He lives on a few acres out in the country, surrounded by corn fields & orchards. The mixture of mint, corn & apple trees on a cool, summer’s evening is amazing!

Franklin grows pretty much everything you can grow around here on his farm–corn, potatoes, onions, garlic, peppers, several varieties of lettuce, zucchini, cucumbers, sugar snap peas, peas, grapes, pumpkins, squash, apples, pears, strawberries. Most of what he grows is organic. He’s quite the gentleman farmer by night, school teacher by day.

The other night we went over & helped pick strawberries. I mostly took pictures & unsuccessfully tried to prevent Salem from eating too much dirt (her favorite way to eat it is as mud as you can tell in the pictures) while the kids, Joseph & Franklin picked several full buckets.

Funny that Salem is wearing a shirt that says “gone fishing with Grandpa.” Of course as a vegan, Salem doesn’t eat fish & neither of her grandpas go fishing.

Have you ever had a freshly picked, organic strawberry? They’re like an explosion in your mouth. A burst of delicious, unadulterated sweetness. The fruity aroma, the bright red flesh. Cannot compare to a genetically modified, mass produced strawberry.

Franklin & my mother-in-law Elizabeth, use the strawberries in a variety of ways–dried, frozen, fresh, or in jam. This batch of strawberries will be made into jam. And can I just say, homemade jam made from strawberries from the garden is far superior in taste & appearance to store bought. But you probably already knew that.