I still need to get my canning pictures from last weekend organized into a post. Last night I was too busy in the garden. I picked two more huge bowls of strawberries! I posted on Facebook that I might have to set up a strawberry stand at the end of my driveway or start peddling them out of the back of my car. I think the harvest was 10 pounds easy. Hopefully tonight and tomorrow night I’ll have time to wash and trim them for the freezer and then this weekend I might do some more canning.
So until I get those pictures organized, here are a few tidbits of information I learned when I started growing my own food as opposed to buying it at the grocery store.
1. Fruits and vegetables picked from the garden are usually HOT. Because the sun has been shining down on them all day, duh. So if you want to pick a watermelon for a picnic, make sure you pick early or the day before so it has time to cool down in the fridge.
2. Fruits and vegetables are dirty! When it rains, mud splashes up on them so you have to wash the dirt off when you bring them in the house. A little dirt never hurt anyone so don’t freak out about this.
3. Fruits and vegetables have bugs on them! Unless you are eating some crazy mutant GMO vegetable that has been sprayed with who knows what. Who wants to eat that? It’s natural for food in the garden to have bugs on it so if you see a bug just push it off.
To my fellow gardeners – what else might you add to this list?
Everything Is Homemade 
Ooh! I live in an apartment right now so I only grow my own herbs (no garden for me yet), but that’s really interesting about giving your produce time to cool down. It seems so “duh” now that you said it… Haha. Of course the fruit/veg will be hot from sitting in the sun, but I’m not sure I’d have thought of that! Good info!
I know, right? When I picked my first ever watermelon I took it right over to the ILs for a BBQ. I cut it up to eat it and was like uhhh this is WARM. That was my “duh” moment. 🙂
Love it! I used to be weirded out by my warm veggies and now I relish in it because I realize that it means it so fresh!
Something I’ve learned……If you have aphids on the leaves just go out there every day and rub your fingers over the leaves to kill the aphids and they’ll be gone in a couple days!
One of the things I learned while growing my own vegetables is that it’s ok to eat a vegetable that doesn’t look picture perfect.
Such a good one! I think too many years of buying produce at the store has conditioned us to think that if a fruit or veggie doesn’t look perfect then it must not be good. I think some of the best ones have some character in an odd shape or size.