Behind the leaves...

yummy surprises are hiding. My strawberry patch has been a little neglected for the past week. I've been concentrating on painting walls, clearing weeds out of the garden and other mundane household chores. The strawberries are taking over the garden bed and I figured they were taking a bit of a summer break from producing berries when I saw a few little glimmers of red. Pushing aside the leaves I found this:

What a beauty! This is the biggest strawberry I have found in our patch this year. I brought it in to show my son and he admired it briefly before eating it. Oh well. I grabbed a bucket and headed back to see what else I could find.

Well, hello there... Seems the strawberries have been hiding on me. After snacking to my fill on blueberries and strawberries, I still had a few treats to bring into the house to share.

It's hard to get an idea of how many blueberries there are from the photo, but I would guess there is over 1 cup and still lots more to come on the bushes. Not bad for their first year! I think I could get used to this.

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In my meager bits of free time, I've been absorbing the most wonderful book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. This book was just the kick in the pants I needed to bring my focus back to a diet of local eating, especially at this time of year when there is so much local goodness available. I'm disappointed I missed out on asparagus season but I look forward to trying out other recipes from her book (which are also available in the above link - I can't recommend her zucchini orzo enough). I'm seeing a bigger veggie garden... I'm seeing more grass removed... I'm seeing my husband leaving town again...