Veggie Andy is my new best friend. Not my husband Andy, but a guy Andy who lives down the road from us. Last year I saw an ad on craigslist for apples and pears that a guy had too much of. A Upick arrangement, for cheap fruits and veggies. I contacted him and it turned out he lived on our road and had 5+ acres of glorious orchardness that we do not. Last year along with the apples and pears – we got grapes, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and berries from him.

I emailed him again this year to ask if we could come and pick over their extra crop, and he readily agreed since he hated to see things go to waste. And since one of their kids was leaving for the military, there wasn’t going to be quite as many people in the house to eat everything up. He’s got a whole production of canning, freezing, dehydrating and leathering going on too, it’s pretty great. We received an education on how fruit leather is kind of like a fruit roll up and tried dried apricots (mmm) and seaberries for the first time.

We just got back from gathering blueberries, raspberries and tomatoes from him. We’re heading back Saturday to get some peaches that are just about ready. And then later on we’ll get some plums, grapes, apples, pears, blackberries and so much more. I already picked a bunch of cherries from him earlier this year too.

As much as I’d like to have a great orchard like Andy and his wife have some day, I really do quite enjoy picking their extra crop for just a few dollars and spending a warm sunny evening with my husband Andy. Instead of doing all the work to maintain the crop, fend off critters, and fight the weather and disease. The Honeckers = engineer and graphic designer by day, migrant workers by night.