Grocery Shopping In My Backyard

Esther:

There must be some blip in the universe that allows an official blackthumb like myself to have a garden... er... rather... reap the benefits of a garden (since I have little to do with the actual gardening part). Normally I don't even walk into The Garden, produce shows up magically in my fridge. But since the keeper of The Garden is away on her honeymoon, I've had to brave the fenced off section of greenery in my backyard that stands as a beacon of triumph and revenge, flaunting its fruit as if it were the tree of Good And Evil. It is the bane of every rabbit, gopher and squirrel in the Cleveland National Forest. The starving populace glares at me and from the window I can see them gnashing their teeth and plotting their next move.


Not unlike the Eden of yore, there are snakes, but as of yet, none of them have talked to me.


The Keeper of the garden has waged war against the aforementioned rabbits/gophers/grimlins for many years and consequently, The Garden now boasts fully underwired planters, a five foot fence, and since something figured out how to dig underneath the fortress last summer, there is also a defensive trench circling the outer wall. All designed with one purpose: To actually eat something out of the garden this year.



Well it worked.
A little too well. I now understand how people can actually live on the food they grow (I know how spoiled and ignorant that makes me sound). The sheer amount of food coming out of this small garden is astounding. Between our chickens, and The Garden, I haven't had to buy eggs, produce, pickles or jam in a very long while, and considering that takes up most of our grocery budget, I couldn't be more thrilled (we eat a lot of pickles).


We have so much food coming from the garden this is about 1/6th of what has been harvested this week. Nobody in their right mind can eat 12 cucumbers a day, no matter how much they love pickles, salad and gazpacho. We're trying to can and jar everything, but we've still given a lot away.


The fairy minions and I go out to the garden every day to grocery shop. I've started to plan the menu around what is about to rot off the vine in the garden.
The zucchini is particularly flabbergasting. I swear there wasn't a zucchini here yesterday and today I'm met with this. I know you're not supposed to let them get as huge as this one is (about the size of a small baseball bat or a caveman's club), but I promise you, it just spontaneously appeared.


These are the guardians of The Garden. They are filled with my arch nemesis, bees.


I've never understood why people were more afraid of spiders. If potentially phobic creatures are like chess pieces, then spiders are Rooks... they can only move laterally. Bees are like the Queen, the potential for disaster is so much greater. Up, down, sideways, diagonal... you never know which direction they're going to come from. And for me, bees are exponentially more deadly.

Shudder.

Grocery shopping down a dirt aisle, while dodging small winged monsters isn't exactly my idea of a good time, but you can't beat the convenience factor. That and the Keeper went through great pains to install a drip system so I wouldn't kill The Garden in her absence.


I'm trying my best.


Does anyone know when I'm supposed to pick this pumpkin? Or what I'm supposed to do with a few truckloads of swiss chard?
6 sprinkles of fairy dust:

You've never had a spider drop down on your head?? The thing about bees is that they don't usually come indoors, and seeing them doesn't make me feel like they're crawling all over me for hours. But then I've only ever been stung once, and it was kind of like the countless slivers I got in my perpetually bare feet.

I'm definitely envious of your garden. Mine have apparently become the local cat portapotties. *sob*gag*


Yuck, I guess living in the city doesn't make it any easier to keep the critters out.

And spiders dropping down on my head is only mildly disturbing in comparison to the thought of a bee stuck in my curly hair (which has happened more than once).


Wow. I am in awe of your garden! Mine is sad and pathetic. I planted them waaaay too late and started from seed. So the herbs came up and then died. The tomatoes are currently about 6 inches tall, and I'm not holding my breath waiting for them to produce...


Much envying and admiration from my standpoint.


All of those garden pics are seriously inspiring. I can't wait to get home to mine, which is similarly fenced, trenched, raised, and under-wired. We learned our lesson last year!

I'd love it if you'd post some favorite pickle recipes.


My mom used to make a zucchini pancake something like this when I was growing up. I think she put some eggs in hers though. http://soupbelly.com/2010/06/17/super-easy-zucchini-pancakes/

It might be a welcome reprieve from zucchini bread.

Zuppa Toscana is my go to for using kale or chard. Also Minestrone. :)