PYO

Last weekend (Sat afternoon, to be precise), we went off to do some PYO (Pick Your Own). For the Indians here at least, PYO makes a lot of sense.

Instead of buying green chillies and eggplant (as brinjal is called here) at exorbitant rates, it makes good sense (and fun) to drive for an hour-and-a-half to a farm, swelter in the sun and pick your own. Nah, not really, but the novelty is what makes it good, plus the satisfaction of picking really fresh veggies. Basically, a different kind of time out.

So we did do it. Us and another friend's family. T'was the first time that Nandita and Shiv had come.

We went beserk as soon as we sighted the eggplants. Already, the bigger ones had been snared by the early Indian birds and we salvaged the medium-sized ones with great gusto. The people who came in on Sunday would have had to go back with no eggplants at all. I must've picked about 14 kg, as I picked for a couple of friends as well. Got my hand pricked well and truly by the thorns on the eggplant stems.

Nandana had a great time picking tomatoes and strawberries. She then wandered off to pick some red onions and garlic, just to see what it was like to pull them up from under the ground. I picked capsicum and then we both settled in to pick chillies.

As usual, I went overboard. They were so many differnt kinds. So, we picked some jalapeno chillies and then some Mexican ones (they are the bajji milagai that we get back home). Then I picked some super chillies, which are really, really hot.

Then, the main chilli picking. Cayenne chillies, which are our usual everyday cooking chillies. Nandana and I picked and picked. And while my back groaned, my head started pounding too. Still, we gamely picked, while Shiv and the others started taking the buckets of picked produce to the farm entrance to be weighed.

Finally, we had about 2 kilos of chillies, so decided enough was enough. I marvelled at an elderly Indian man picking next to me. He had picked twice as much, and all of them neat and clean without stalks or leaves (the stalks make up 5 to 10 % of the produce weight).

My next worry, where do I find the space in my fridge to put all this stuff?

Another thought _ would have been easier to just get all the stuff send to me from Auckland, where it isn't all that expensive.

Still, I wouldn't have given up that fun for everything. Plus the pleasure of cooking and eating really fresh veggies _ ummm, those eggplants were heavenly.

http://chillipatch.co.nz/freshproduce.htm

And I have cleaned and frozen most of the chillies, to be used over the next few months.

Nothing beats the thrill of PYO, not even my sore back!