Mother's Day...

We added a new berry to the OAH this afternoon! The girls (with the help of their PaPa) got me a huge "Austin Dewberry." It's around 4 1/2 feet tall & already producing, so I'll be exploring uses for Dewberrys in the next few weeks! If any of you have had them, please share recipes and preservation tips!

We've also been harvesting a bowlful of strawberries each day. I've learned that propping the berries up on the leaves helps with the rolly polly problem and keeps them off the wet soil, which has also proved to be detrimental.

Although the onions are not ready for a mass harvest, we are pulling one here and there to use and they are wonderful. I'm contemplating preservation methods for these, so please share if you have tips in this area, too. I plan to dehydrate some for quick additions to soups and stews and also chop some up for freezing. Of course, we'll eat lots of them fresh.

The potatoes are almost ready to harvest as needed. At first, we'll get new potatoes then we'll just dig them up a plant or two at a time. I've found that this is the best way to keep them from spoiling and they just keep growing as they wait for us to harvest.

Tomorrow we'll harvest our peas! This is my first ever successful crop of peas. I learned that I've always planted them WAY too late. I went by the Farmer's Almanac this year for my early plantings and boy has it paid off! The girls have enjoyed some of the peas right off the plants..they are amazingly sweet. I've even more excited that there are lots of new blooms so I know our harvest should continue. How do you preserve peas without a pressure canner? I'm saving $ for one, but they are so pricey. It doesn't help that I don't trust the cheaper ones with the weight...I'd prefer a pressure gauge so I'm sure our canned food is safe.