Some of my favorite memories as a child are going out into the fields and picking strawberries. I know that we never had any berries in our buckets... but we sure managed to eat our fill, and have a ball while doing it. Carson, Wayne and I decided we wanted to do something along those lines as a family too. I can remember hulling the berries and my Mom making strawberry jam, and having frozen strawberries for a long time. I think we also picked snow peas...if I remember right. Anyway, we missed the strawberry season by several months, but we still had lots of fruit available to pick.
Some friends of our recommended a website click here to find local orchards etc, that will allow you to pick your own fruit. We missed cherry and blueberry season, but we hit the tail end of peach season. I have been wanting a peck or two of peaches to freeze and make a cobbler or two. So this morning we headed up to a small town off I-66 called Delaplane, Virginia. It was about an hour drive to the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains in the Shenandoah Valley. Very pretty drive and a great adventure as a family. This particular area has apple orchards, peach orchards, vineyards, cornfields... you name.... they grow it!
Today we picked two pecks of peaches, a pint each of raspberries and blackberries, and a couple dozen ears of sweet corn. We could have picked tomatoes, Kentucky wonder green beans, and dug potatoes. But we had more than enough with what we had.
Carson quickly mastered the peach picker!
Dad had to hold him up for a few higher up ones.
It took us about 20 minutes to fill our bags... there were about 10 different varieties, but we mostly picked the smaller Loring peach.
The blackberries were really sweet and plump!
Carson discovered that the red blackberries are very, very tart... and he won't touch any of them now.
The Raspberries were very sweet also... and there were tons and tons of them.
Carson and I picked a bunch of sweet corn too... I gave my neighbor a bunch and we will eat the rest for supper tonight!
All in all a memory I will treasure, and hopefully the beginning of a tradition for us as the various fruit and vegetable seasons come and go. We already have plans to go back for apple season, and most definitely for pumpkins and fall squash.
5 comments:
Going back in time to when I was a youngster, I have a distinct memory of eating peaches. My dad loved them and I too grew fond fo them. The interesting part of my dad and I eating a peach was the my dad would not each the peach fuzz - anytime he wanted to have a peach mom would have to get out a knife and skin the peach and then bring it to dad, whereas I would eat the whole peach fuzz incldued. At times I would walk up to him with mine and tell him how good it was and would he like a bite while mom was peeling his...lol
I remember the strawberry picking. I think we always ate more than we put in the basket. Seems like Dodie took us one time too?
I even remember the strawberry picking. I would love to do that.. but no fun for me since I can not eat them. Realized that I am also allergic to raspberries while at Hollys this summer. I can still do blueberries at least. I love the great pictures.
I also remember the strawberries and the English peas. I just glad they didn't weigh you kids in and out like they do at the grain elevators. The charges would have been astronomical!
I LOVE picking fresh fruit! We just canned about 20pints of peaches 2 weeks ago. Also we're doing apples in a couple weeks and will find pumpkins along the way I'm sure! LOL It is so fun to see pics of your little guy picking peaches. I remember one year taking My son and little brother and they'd picked SO Many apples that once the bushels were filled they started filling up their sweatshirts with them! (That was a very big bill for me that year...) It was funny - I'll have to dig out the pictures. Thanks for the memories -and the great website!
Kisha
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