Amazing Grace (& Greens) of Okra Leaves

Well  “I just went ahead and did it!” No--though not as exciting as a facelift--I ate okra leaves. Now you probably have to be fairly desperate to eat okra leaves, which I found out through firsthand experience, since they are not easy to soften up for eating.

The Garden Seasons at Raccupine Farms

Travel through the seasons at Raccupine Farms by clicking on the photo above... Enjoy!

The Abundance of Avocados

Have I mentioned that our 30-foot avocado tree has yielded at least 30 avocados so far this summer? All have been a little over a pound and, when they ripen, their nuttiness is a taste of heaven and they spread like butter. Nathan planted this treasure from one avocado pit in a pot when he came to live here. We have waited about eleven years for this tree to bear this much fruit.

Volunteers for the Harvest

Lucky us! We have volunteers that show up from time to time in our garden. But ours don't sign in when they arrive; they just pop up out of the ground. Last winter's frost put a dent in their production but a few have managed to linger and recover. So we have spurts here and there of last winter's crop mixed in with this summer's bounty. 

Yesterday, I gathered some winter friends

Dirt, Composting, and Love

Then...

When Nathan first came to live in this house, he wanted to buy a yard of dirt to use for landscaping the “football field” (aka the backyard). I remember putting up such a stink over it. The truth was that I had been “left” before in this house AND--to add insult to injury to embarrassment--I got left with a huge mess to clean up.

Eating what’s “hot” when it’s hot!

In Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal Vegetable Miracle she urges us to digress to a time-- before trucks burned fossil fuel ad nauseam to transport fresh vegetables coast to coast--when we had no choice but to eat what was grown locally. Where I grew up--in Maine in the 50’s and well into the 70’s--there only was local produce. Kingsolver’s wonder-filled book encourages us to buy local produce and be creative in eating it every way imaginable until that crop runs out and the next abundant vegetable crops up to challenge us to do it all over again. Animal Vegetable Miracle is a veritable gold mine of Kingsolver’s family’s experiences doing just that and it even contains recipes we all can use.