CORN-TOMATOES-GREEN BEANS-CABBAGE. . . .

Here is Grandma working in the garden! (Her passion!)

Yeah!! Finally our garden is in full production! We are eating wonderful tomatoes. I had one today that I'm sure weighed at least one pound. It was huge and delicious. I ate it for lunch along with corn on the cob! It was wonderful and I never tire of tomatoes and corn or most of the other of our home-grown goodies! I also picked a bucket of blackberries from our patch that grows wild. I never have to water or weed or fertilize. They just keep coming! From that bucket I froze two one-gallon bags of berries. We enjoy making blackberry cobblers especially for those who are visiting the Pacific Northwest. We also enjoy blackberry pie, smoothies, etc. Blackberries are wonderful fresh or frozen or in jams or desserts. Oregon is a wonderful place to live and grow a garden. We have a wonderful mild climate! (Most of the time we don't get snow, but we are close enough to snow if we want it. We are also close enough to the ocean for a visit there as well.) What I would like to know is if this is such a wonderful place why have all of our children migrated to the Wasatch Front in Utah? The only thing we are not close to is our family!! Yup, while we are growing this wonderful garden, our children and grandchildren are living 900 miles away! We wish they were here to enjoy it with us. So we hope for visits from them; and we keep the airlines and gas companies in business as we visit them.

Here is Mary with my one pound tomato.

Today's berry picking along with tomatoes and corn for lunch!

Here are the berries I picked today. I generally don't wash my berries before we eat or freeze them. They haven't been sprayed and they are away from the road where they might get lots of road dirt on them. They hold up better if you don't wash them. (What is a bug or two, right?) Then I spread them on cookie sheets and freeze them. After they are frozen I put them into gallon-size freezer bags to be used for delicious desserts or smoothies later on.