Pick your own - back in vogue?

The u-pick operation can never market itself like a trip to the grocery store. It is a weekend day trip, preferably accompanied by kids. It is making memories, picking blueberries for an hour or so then eating them on the way home. Yet the u-pick is getting some press as a cheaper alternative than a trip to the supermarket. Check this story from WPSDTV.

Another news item for fruits and vegetables today was the advice to omnivores to be a sometime vegetarian: "For better health, be a part time vegetarian." by Gale Maleskey, MS, RD. I think a better term of art is needed than "part time vegetarian." Are you still a part time vegetarian while downing a quarter pounder? This column was posted on a Web site optimistically called www.stopagingnow.com. The author had this "bottom line": the plant based diet offers the best protection against some of the most common diseases of aging. Count me in..part of the time, at least.


"We can all be gourmet gardeners." This story from The Telegraph of the UK is a nod to the accomplished green thumb. "A vegetable patch, allotment, fruit orchard, or even a few pots on the windowsill, allow us the pleasure of handpicking fruit and vegetables and putting them straight onto the plate."
But don't make it sound so easy..The next tomato I harvest from a backyard plant will be my first. In what seems to be a great reader interest promotion, The Telegraph is launching a Food Garden Competition, with judging done by a panel including a chef, organic farmer, head gardener and a journalist. Here is some advice on options:

Another option could be to replace the front lawn with vegetables. This need not consist of a sea of Brussels sprouts and bare soil nudging up against the parked car, but could take the form of a few marginally raised fixed beds. I have seen front gardens devoted to a mass of vegetables and they can look amazingly good.

Amazingly good, but better than a green blanket of weedless turf?