It's That Time Again!!

   Locavore Summer 2 is on and I am feeling much more confident than I was last year, despite the fact that we haven't started receiving our CSA veggies yet! The cupboard in the basement is still full of applesauce, peaches, pickles, beets, flavoured oils and sauces. I have two bags of frozen strawberries left, shredded zucchini, green and yellow beans, broccoli, brustle sprouts and a few jars of freezer jam. The freezer is also well stocked with Dalew pork and beef, moose, duck, fish, venison, chicken and even a giant turkey from my Father In Law's neighbours. I've had the canner out already, processing 16lbs of rhubarb in to savoury jam, sweet jam, BBQ sauce and juice and there is still some left in the freezer. There should still be Ontario asparagus and fiddle heads at the grocery store, and lucky for us, mushrooms, and hot house cucumbers that are grown in southern Ontario all year round. We won't go hungry, even though the first few weeks are going to be a little meat heavy/veggie light, as I ration out last year's left overs. I think this summer is going to be a piece of cake!


   I haven't been in to Eat Local Sudbury since Christmas but I'm really looking forward to renewing my weekly trips there once the Dalew CSA starts up again, hopefully next week. I'm craving Burt's Cheddar Smokies in the worst way! I bought cheese sausages at the grocery store a few weeks ago, hoping I would get my fix, but they were a huge disappointment! We also got word that Dalew's are offering hot dogs now, much to Shannon D's delight. She's already picked up 4 packs and gave great reviews! They have also found a new source for local flour, which, when I heard that they had lost their last supplier, I feared would be the downfall of our project. Now we are good to go again!


   My garden is in and doing pretty well. We decided to focus more on freezing/canning vegetables and herbs this year rather than fresh eating... things like shelling peas, beans, carrots, spinach, golden beets, pickling cukes, peppers and a pretty good variety of herbs. We get so much from Dalew's for day to day eating, so we thought this might be a good plan to try. I also planted radishes between my rows. I don't really love radishes but I've been wanting to try them roasted à la Shannon D., so I thought I'd give them a try. I only planted 3 brandywine tomatoes and 1 cherry tomato, which was a huge cut back from last year. I decided that for the amount of space they take up in my small gardens, relative to yield, I'd rather take up the space with smaller plants, and just buy a bushel of tomatoes in the late summer. The added benefit is that I can process them all at once, rather than a few here and there. I hope I don't regret this decision!


   So, for our Locavore 2.0 Kick Off Meal tonight, we will be having fish and chips fried in our backyard, featuring pickerel Keith and I caught on our last trip home, local potatoes and steamed green and yellow beans. Yummo!!

My 2011 Garden of Eatin'

Shannon A.