Last weekend, I was lucky enough to be invited to Boulder to join Pam, Rich, Olivia and Dianne to pick some produce. It was a fantastic day and I came away with WAY more food than I'd expected. Pam owns some houses in Boulder and two of them had apple trees ready to be picked so we not only got lots of apples, but we also got lots of beets at a farm that she has connections with. Dianne and I carpooled up to Boulder from Denver and met Olivia, Pam and Rich's new friend. She is going to school in Oregon but is taking the semester off to bike across the country, from Oregon to Florida!! She met Pam and Rich one day bike riding and they invited her for the farm extravaganza in Boulder!
Here's the group of us after a long day of harvesting, enjoying our lunch together!
We made out like bandits at the beet farm. On the left is Bob, the farmer, who was so nice to us. We picked TONS of beets in addition to several delicious tomatoes!
Look at how huge these beets are! Olivia was picking the white ones, while Dianne and I picked the pink ones (that are swirled). Pam got the ginormous purple ones!
Olivia, Dianne and I showing off our harvested beets! Boxes full!!
Pam said it all with that quote!
Here was the beautiful meal we enjoyed after all our hard work. We had some tomatoes and cucumbers in addition to the boiled beets and sauteed beet greens (with garlic and EVOO, thanks to Dianne). YUM!!!
The farmer and the harvester, or the harvester and the farmer--such talented people when it comes to growing food! :)
We got to sit in the back of the truck as we were driven to the beet field where we harvested for about 15 minutes and got SO MANY in so little time!
Olivia and I loved the pumpkin stand Bob had at his produce stand. There were some beautiful gourds and colorful pumpkins!
The crazy green, twisted gourd Olivia was holding ended up breaking. I guess they're more fragile than we expected!
Us four girls hanging out in the apple tree we were about to harvest. I got to use the super fun apple picker that had a little cage that caught the harvested apple, AWESOME!
Dianne, finding the good apples on the ground.
Olivia, using the table to pick the hidden apples in the tree.
I had too much fun with that apple picker! :)
Here is Olivia with her super hard-core bike that she is using to go cross-country! You go girl!!!
Here's all the produce I ended up getting in Boulder. On the left are all the beet greens. The middle box are the beets, tomatoes and a few random things (chives, peppers, zucchini) from Pam and Rich's garden in Boulder. The right box is all the apples I got!!
So much food all for $10!!
These are the apples I used to make the apple crisp for tonight's dessert! And we made lots of applesauce---delicioso!!!
A bunch of applesauce!! Yum!! 1 week later and it's almost all gone, that's how much we don't like applesauce...just kidding!
So many beet greens I blanched and froze.
Frozen beet greens ready to use.
I also snabbed some lavender from Pam's yard. It's pretty but I wish it were stronger so that when you walked into the house you'd smell LAVENDER!!!
Some on the kitchen table
And some in my room!
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