Something given, something grown

John's sister brought over some beautiful Georgia peaches. I resisted the impulse to take more, though she generously offered; deciding that my own tree will be ripe in 3-4 weeks, and I'll have a lot of work to do getting them jammed and stored. I'm trying to be more realistic about both what I can do, and how much we can eat or give away!

Meanwhile, the cherry tomatoes have gotten serious. . . a roasted cherry tomato something is not far off. A few raspberries continue to trickle in, though they won't get serious until about the time the peaches start coming in. Aha. Hence the origin of Peach Melba?

Meanwhile, silly as it sounds, we're getting a little tired of fresh blueberries. I've been harvesting 1-2 quarts every other day for over a week. They are slowing down, but we'll be in fresh blueberries for at least another week.

This reminds me of the days when I had over an acre of raspberries to harvest for my research at Penn State. It's not like a regular harvest. One has to get EVERY ripe berry (impossible, really, but that is the goal), and keep all of the berries from specific treatments separate. Weigh, count, then do something with quarts and quarts of raspberries. Early on the folks hired for harvesting take quite a few, but I would always end up with a ton of raspberries in the refrigerator. At one point, my fruit-loving oldest daughter asked me to stop bringing raspberries home. (!) Back then I had the energy to make All of The Raspberry Things, freeze the rest, and then come back to making Raspberry things when the harvest season was well done. Not so much these days. I am, however, grateful for the yard, the fruit, the sustenance, and the means to store food. A small bit of security in a changing world.