I have really enjoyed tending to our little raised-bed garden this summer, and I finally have hummingbirds checking out my feeder. Up until the last week or so, it was only the house finches that came to visit. (Weird, eh?)
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| Our Sweet Peppers... taking their "sweet time" |
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| The cucumbers are blooming all over the place now |
We have experienced a few bugs attempting to make a meal of our tasty vittles. I found two Tomato worms - or caterpillars (a.k.a. Hornworm) munching away on our tomato plants. Strange, isn't it? The leaves are poisonous to us, humans, but they sure enjoyed devouring the top half of two plants. Grrr.
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Apparently, tomatoes have difficulty pollinating in excessive heat. (we hail from Arizona at the moment) According to The Weekly Crop Update from The University of Delaware "Constant exposure of a tomato plant to high temperatures (day/night temperatures of 95/80°F) significantly reduces the number of pollen grains produced and released per flower and decreases the pollen’s viability."
So anyway, we have to get most of our produce in the usual manner. I recently discovered that we have a Co-op here who provide organic and natural produce, and other products. I have made a couple trips for fruits and veggies there. It is a little more pricey, so right now we aren't able to buy them all the time - BUT - I am trying to buy local & organic as much as possible.
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| Mmmmm. Goodies from the Co-op. (I think the lime & garlic were from the regular grocery) |
I could not believe how much better the bananas from the Co-op tasted! I seriously did not want to eat another "regular" banana ever again. Organic is the way to go. It makes me wonder - why do the store bought bananas taste and look SO different? It was reassuring to know that when I do buy the bright yellow bananas that they have *less* pesticide residue... I guess...
According to Susi May on Fitsugar.com "Bananas, along with avocados, mangos, papayas, and pineapples have been found to have the lowest pesticide residue. However, apples, cherries, grapes, nectarines, peaches, pears, raspberries, strawberries have very high pesticide residues."
There is a list called the dirty dozen, which consists of the 12 highest contaminated fruits/veggies:
- Peaches
- Apples
- Sweet Bell Peppers
- Celery
- Nectarines
- Strawberries
- Cherries
- Pears
- Grapes (Imported)
- Spinach
- Lettuce
- Potatoes
Needless to say, at the very least, try to buy organic when picking a fruit or vegetable from the dirty dozen. (Dang, I just bought strawberries and didn't realize they were on this list! Crap.)
It isn't easy switching over to a "clean" lifestyle. If you are skeptical, try taking a browse through the organic section or checking out a farmer's market, or Co-op. The avocados are smaller, the bananas are darker, the carrots look a little funky... that's because they are supposed to look like that! Picture that celebrity that you just know has had a dozen plastic surgeries.. all that "improvement" has been done artificially... and you can tell by looking at them that they aren't..natural.
I found this funny on Nature's Path Organic Foods facebook page.
Love those funky carrots! I forgot about our funky carrots that we picked a few weeks ago. They resembled the "European" carrots in the picture above, but tasted like carrots. A little more spicey than normal, though. It was interesting. We also had some radishes that came in first - Man, those suckers grow fast. I hope to write more often - I have a lot of ideas swimming around in my head for posts. If anyone wants to see more of anything, please let me know! I welcome all comments and suggestions. :)
Keep enjoying your summer ~
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