Keeping It Real...

This is an old post, but a fun memory.

I think I've mentioned my mom's a big gardener.

Some of the gardening is fun--like eating fresh corn on the cob, and other parts stink.  Like a childhood of picking 2 buckets of rocks every day all summer.

But RJ and I happened to be visiting this year on the big harvest day when a lot of produce has already come and gone.

Harvest day is mainly the orchard and pumpkins, and grapes.  It's a lot of fun actually.

I opted to start off in the raspberry patch.  My absolute favorite.  I think it's genetic and got passed to the next generation. 

This year my mom grew butternut squash that I was excited about. 

Apparently this was a bad year for the orchard.

My mom didn't get any peaches, the plums stunk, and not much else was as great as years past.

There's a tree with golden delicious apples that had nothing, but the gala apple were good.

Then we had all the pumpkins.  My mom always grows a huge pumpkin patch with different varieties.  Some for canning, some for carving, some just for looks.

Lynette was nice to give RJ rides after dropping off a load of pumpkins--he looks pretty comfy lazy kid!

As kids we would sell pumpkins off our porch.  But I guess my mom just gives them to friends and family now.  

She also grows concord grapes.  She saw a youtube video on pruning them specifically for juice, and she said it made a difference, along with harvesting a lot later. 

It took 2 days to juice them all.

Once on a girl trip a few years ago, we were eating our fancy complimentary breakfast in the hotel and Jayne said how grape juice was such a luxury.  That seemed so weird to me.  Grape juice for me was like peasant juice for poor people since my mom made it and we had it a lot.  For me, orange juice is a big splurge and delight.   Grape juice is good too, but not special.

I did have a little garden this year and it didn't do too well--a total disgrace to my farmer ancestors.

I'm blaming it on planting late since we didn't move until July, having to leave from the end of Aug to Oct to Boise for Rhett's work, and it being my first try.

Maybe one day my harvest will be as plentiful as my mom's.  For now I can only help eat it and cart it out of the field.  She really grew it all.