For the past year, we have been dining with friends every Friday night. Alternating hosting with being guests, we compete not with each other but for the great dining experiences enjoyed together. Highlights have included a low country crawfish boil, the $5 Julia Child dinner, 18-hour braised pork, and the kid favorite, chicken and...
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The back of my legs ache with familiar soreness of strawberry picking. Remarkably, almost a whole month earlier than last year, the 2012 season is here! Picking Strawberries at Bird’s Haven Farms Thanks to a tip from a friend, Lil and I drove north of Granville to check out Bird’s Haven Farms on the...
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1. concord grapes 2. red currants 3. peach 4. montmorency cherries 5. strawberries 6. raspberries 7. blueberries I took pictures of fruit babies last year. The comparison is interesting both because the fruits are three weeks ahead of where they were in 2011 and my photography skills have improved dramatically. Watching my fruit babies...
Read more →We picked strawberries today at Schact Farm Market. Given the interest on facebook and twitter, I wrote a quick profile for those looking to pick strawberries this season. Schacht is a family farm located in south east central Ohio. The easy drive to their location took thirty minutes from our home in Clintonville. The...
Read more →There is nothing like homegrown fruit. Last year we enjoyed warm raspberries off the vine and perfectly sweet strawberries along with two (yes, just two) Italian plums. The anticipation for this year’s fruit starts with tiny flower buds and bitty baby fruit that are revealing themselves now. Here are some of the fruitlets we...
Read more →Did you pick strawberries last week and then receive quarts of them in your CSA this week? That’s the case with many of my friends who are now looking for quick ways to process the excess. The fastest way to preserve berries, in my opinion, is freezing. Frozen berries can be popped into yougurt...
Read more →When we returned from a short vacation last week, there were plenty of ripe strawberries to pick. Lil asked sweetly, “Can we make strawberry shortcake please Mama?” She is hard to refuse. But after four days of restaurants and treats, I wanted to make dessert a little healthier. I adapted a recipe my mother...
Read more →Just after the second set of pea leaves appeared, birds started eating them. I blame sparrows, the possibly invasive species that seem to swarm our neighborhood in the spring. So, bird netting is on the peas. Last year we lost strawberries to the squirrels. Even with Alex’s not exactly legit squirrel hunting, they still...
Read more →Our berries are growing gangbusters this year! This is their second and third year in this bed, one in between our house and the neighbors. It gets sunlight for about 6 hours of the day now and that time is ever lengthening. Weeds are a threat to these berries. I weed the bed almost...
Read more →Strawberries are named such because gardeners traditionally cover them in straw during the fall. The straw mulch both prevents weeds from growing in early spring and protect the delicate plants from cleaving through frozen soil. Now is the time to put straw on your beds in central Ohio. I happened to score some free...
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