Self-picking heaven

Yesterday me and my bf's mother went on a little trip. We had made plans to go blueberry-picking in the mountains, and I was quite doubtful as to whether there would be any blueberries to pick at all this late in the season. As it turned out I didn't have to worry, there were plenty of berries to pick. On our way up into the hills we passed a sign announcing self-picking of potatoes, onions and carrots. I instantly knew we'd have to postpone our blueberry picking for at least an hour or two, I just had to pick some of the goodies advertised!

I love self-picking places and secretly, well not so secretly any more, dream of running my own self-picking farm in the future. I love that you get to see where the vegetables come from, you even get to pick them straight from the dirt yourself, instead of just seeing them in bag at the supermarket. I love searching for, and finding all the quirky looking vegetables. Like a three-legged carrot, or a huge knot of intertwined potatoes. It's charming!

They had two different kinds of potatoes to pick, almond potatoes and Beate potatoes. I only picked almond potatoes thinking I'd be back today for some Beate. (The weather today was not potato-picking friendly so I will have to return another day). Well, I got quite a few delicious almond potatoes and can't wait to cook some for dinner this week. Recipes anyone?

Picking onions was rather tedious work. The larger onions had been picked by someone else, not that I minded, the smaller onions taste much better, and a great number of small onions had been trampled. But I found a good kilo of small red- and white onions. I was happy!

Look at these funny-looking carrots. Aren't they just simply charming? Some carrots had been picked and tossed out by other people, but further down the field you could, with a pitchfork, dig for your own, fresh as can be, carrots. I dug for some but then went back to digging for small carrots in the dirt, carrots discarded by others but still left in the dirt instead of on top of it.

After spending, I was about to say a small fortune but that would have been a lie since the prices were really great, a little bit of money at the self-picking place we headed up into the mountains for some blueberry picking. We spent about 2 hours picking and came away with somewhere between 3-4 litres of delicious blueberries. I also picked a small handful of lingonberries, but quite honestly I don't know why I bothered. I don't like lingonberries and there isn't a whole lot one can do with only a small handful of berries anyhow.