Another Week Closer to Spring!

I can't wait! We have been discussing what to plant in the garden this year. Last year, we bought a vacuum sealer and it was the best investment we ever made. It's been so nice having fresh zucchini, peppers, green beans and corn right at our fingertips all winter. With the price of veggies here in the upper north, we have saved a bundle. That's one of the things I miss about California. I loved having the freshest fruits and veggies at hand. Here, everything gets picked early (green) and has to be shipped in, so there's little to no flavor, because it ripens in the trucks. We usually have a large garden every year. Rob has a tendency to plant enough to feed the starving in Ethiopia. We supply cucumbers to just about everyone we know. When they start getting ripe, he'll pick anywhere from 75 to 150 A DAY. The same goes for peppers, and beans. Last year, I put 50 bags of beans and about 50 bags of diced green peppers (in 1 cup servings) in the freezer, and that's not counting what we ate, and gave away! One year, we decided we were gooing to grow our own broccoli. So we planted a row. The plants were beautiful. There were about 20 plants, and all of them had gorgeous heads of broccoli on them. We watched and waited and when they were a good size we decided that we would pick them the next day. Well....we went out to pick the next day and they were GONE. Every single head of broccoli had disappeared over night!. They were stolen! We were livid! But the strange thing was, there were no footprints. So again I watched...and again I waited, and soon the little thieves showed up...WOODCHUCKS. There were 2 of the biggest woodchucks I have ever seen out in our garden looking for seconds! The little devils had already eaten all the broccoli, so they were checking out the other stuff. Evidently they were still full, because they went their way without munching anything else. Needless to say, we haven't planted broccoli since. This year, we are planting marigolds around the perimeter of the garden. They are supposed to keep the critters out. We get rabbits, and deer out in our garden too. The rabbits like the cucumbers, and the deer like the beans and beets. They'll pull them right out of the ground and eat them! (Rob uses that for an excuse to over plant. He says he has to compensate for the animals) We are going to plant the usual things this year, and maybe some new stuff too. I think we are going to try egg plant this year. We could be vegetarians really easy, if we didn't have to give up meat! (LOL) Anyway, that's all for now. Have a good one!