And back to West Virginia

Spring is supposed to be the best time

to take country walks and dig for wild ramps in West Virginia.

The country scenery is certainly beautiful

but I forgot about the difficulty of walking through real mud

 as opposed to the sand we have in Florida.

In a word, yuck.

The weather dried out after the first day

and we were able to dig our ramps.

I was reading through the descriptions of ramps on this site:

http://www.wildedible.com/wild-food-guide/ramps

and saw that lily of the valley leaves look the same but are

DEADLY.

This is why I never forage alone:  I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

It was also morel mushroom season in West Virginia

 but we didn't find any and none of the locals offered to part with theirs.

Fair enough.

My West Virginia friend, Anne, packaged up some ramps

 for me to take back home

and I added a few to a batch of homemade refrigerator pickles.

Taste test scheduled in one week!

The garden is on the verge of going crazy

and I couldn't be happier about it!

The carrots are adorable but I really dislike the taste of carrots so not sure about their future in my garden.  Beets...meh...I'm trying but I do love their greens.

I was wondering how to go about drying rattlesnake beans in the wet Florida weather but the decision was made while I was out of town. 

 One section of the beans wasn't harvested and grew too big to eat as a green bean so I'm going to let those dry and hopefully they'll be ready to bring in before the worst of the rainy season.

Fingers crossed for squash!

This volunteer acorn squash had me all excited

 until I noticed that the dang caterpillars already ate through it.

I'm being very disciplined with applications of homemade oil spray but my research indicated that it won't kill insects outright; it will disrupt the cycle of the next generation.

I've had luck with butternut squash down here

but I haven't spotted any volunteer calabazas or cucuzzi so I might have to buy seeds and be more diligent about saving seeds next season.

I have so many cherry tomatoes on the vines

it would take a veritable tomato apocalypse to lose them all.

Planning for lots of yummy tomato action in the coming weeks!

I think it's time to raccoon-proof the pineapples

so I'll be wrapping them in attractive chicken wire cages some time this week.

Although it's not edible, 

I think my dream of a BIG cardboard palm is going to come true

 because this thing is throwing out tons of new growth.

And I'll finish with an adorable dog photo of Lilly.

I was given a selfie stick for my birthday but technology never works for me and no matter how hard I try, I can't get it to sync with the Bluetooth on my phone, therefore, I have to take my selfies the "old fashioned" way and hope for the best.  It helps to have a great canine model.