The "Farm to Table" rage

Strikes me as funny when I hear terms like that.
It always seems to remind me that my great grandmother was WAAAY ahead of the times. She was buying organic before there was even a word for it. She grew her own foods, knowing that what she was able to grow was 100 times better than anything you could buy in the store. She & my great-grandfather always had chickens and those eggs were better than any you could buy in the store. According to today's terminology, organic, free range chickens. Papa would let them out of the coop in the afternoon to roam their property, happly clucking around the grass finding bugs. As dusk would approch they all would make their way back to the coop, the mother hens calling their babies to follow them. After they had gotten comfy in their coop he would close the gate & leave them till the next morning.
And Grandmommie grew just about everything. Corn, peas, concord grapes (that she would make her own grape juice out of. Delicious & WAAAY better than Welch's), Onions, peppers, tomatoes, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, apples, plums, figs, walnuts, rubarb and jalapeno peppers which she was known for. She would pickle them with carrots and onions, can them up and give them out to family.
So this summer Derek and I have started our garden. This season has been trial and error. As we are starting to get into a schedule of planting. We have been "harvesting" lately which is exciting. We are growing:


Green Leaf Lettuce
























Cute little watermelons. They only get about as big as a cantalope. (The kids can't wait for these)









Cucumbers

















Yellow Tear drop tomatoes

And corn. Beautiful corn. 3 varities of sweet. Derek and I can't wait for these.

Rocky likes to play in the corn. "Rocky of the Corn" we call him now. :)

So far we have been able to harvest:

The cucumbers you can dang near watch them grow. Those I picked last week I pickled (look for a recipe soon!) and I have 3 more HUGE ones sitting on my counter right now waiting to be pickled too. The yellow tomatoes are the first we picked last week. I have another bowl, over-flowing with them just from the last few days. I just grab a handful of them as a snack. So yummy.

And as my great-grandma did, we are growing our veggies and fruits pesticide free.

So I'll get my pictures and recipe together for the Sweet & Spicy pickles I made last week and post that as well.

Have a great week & Happy Gardening!