The Modern Victory Garden

Last Sunday we did our annual berry-picking trip to Graysmarsh Farm in Sequim Washington.   It’s a beautiful farm sited right on the shoreline of the Strait of Juan De Fuca which makes it extra special because as you pick berries in the many different fields you can look towards the edge of the farm and view the sea and an occasional large ship passing by.   We pick, visit, eat lots of berries, and listen to other people nearby picking and talking too, and generally just enjoy being out of doors at a great location.   It’s a fun summer outing that always ends with us bringing home buckets of berries to go into the freezer for our winter supply.   It’s also becoming a tradition to stop at a great little deli located on the way home to get some lunch and/or ice cream.   This year the temps were in the mid to upper 90’s so we made a point to get there right as they opened and worked hard to try and wrap up before the worst of the heat set in for the day.   We had two primary harvests we wanted from the day – blueberries and raspberries.   The loganberries were also on but we passed on those and used our time to focus on the two berries we really want to have stocked up in the freezer.   First stop the blueberry fields.        

The bushes were loaded with beautiful ripe berries.                    

We picked blueberries from 10 am until 12:30 pm and then headed to the raspberry fields just as the temps climbed to a sweltering level.   No photos of the raspberry fields as we were driven to get the picking done before the heat got any worse.   At 1:30 we had picked all we had set out to do and paid for our harvest ($2/lb) and headed home.   Ice cream was definitely the order of the day for our treat stop on the way home!                      

Here’s the harvest bounty we brought home - twenty-four pounds of blueberries and ten pounds of raspberries.                              

These were frozen on cookie sheets until frozen solid and then put into gallon zip lock freezer bags so that they were loose and can be easily scooped out as needed.   We got 4 full bags of raspberries and 6 full bags of blueberries.    

There is some harvest bounty happening in our modern victory garden this week as well.   The bush beans are hitting their peak production.   I picked both beds Tuesday evening and got two full colanders (five pounds) which I blanched and froze before heading off to bed that evening.           

There will be a couple of big pickings before the bush beans fizzle out, but right behind them the runner beans and pole beans are coming along and will step right in to fill the gap.   The cucumbers are giving me increasing amounts with each passing day as well, but the temps are dipping down again and I would not be surprised if they stall out for a while as a consequence.   In the meantime, we are enjoying the cukes we do get as refrigerator dill pickles – which are getting eaten almost as fast as I put them into the jar of solution.     

I hope your week is going well and that you are getting some time in your garden too.         

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener