I’ve discovered a wonderful international resource I’d like to share. It’s a website called pickyourown.org and it’s a comprehensive guide to farms and orchards where we can pick our own fruits and vegetables. If you’re in the US, Canada, England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa or Japan, you can consult the listings here. You’ll even find a special section for pumpkin patches.
Once you’ve got your just-picked fruit, you can enjoy the taste of summer in the dead of winter by freezing some of it. The same site has extensive tips for freezing nearly everything you can pick or grow in your back yard, from stone fruits and berries to root vegetables and kale. You’ll find that information here.
For shorter-term produce storage, see my tips here and general food storage information here.
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Hello, well you can’t pick blueberries in England, I’d never actually seen them before, oh my, they look delicious
Gentledove’s last blog post..Hey!
Hi, Gentledove! The link showed me two farms in England with pyo blueberries, one in Essex and one in Hertfordshire. They must be available in the markets because BBC Good Food Magazine has dozens of recipes for them:
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/search.do?keywords=blueberries&searchType=site&features.offset=0&publicationID=
They ARE delicious! And they’re a superfood and are so good for us. I hope you see some in person someday and get to taste them. I love blueberries.
Oh! I was going to ask you about some canning advice…thanks for the link!
bug_girl’s last blog post..Ow! (puns)
You’re welcome! That site is a wealth of information. Happy canning!
This is fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing this. I’m generally just picking up produce at the local grocery store, so this is a very handy link.
Glad to hear it! Thanks for letting me know. If there’s anything better than produce grown within a few miles or hours from home I don’t know what it could be.