Gardening in West Virginia...

One of our goals when we retired was to have enough land for gardening and a climate suitable for growing apples. We found what we were looking for in Canvas, West Virginia. We wanted to grow our own fruits and vegetables. We bought our land during the winter of 1993-1994 and planted a row of asparagus as soon as we could. It is still producing more than 25 years later.

Over the years we planted several fruit trees - and lost a few to the derecho in 2012 and a heavy, wet snow from Tropical Storm Sandy later that year. We replaced five trees in 2013. We now have six apple trees, two cherry (one sour and one sweet), and two peach. We have a half dozen or so blueberry bushes, red and black raspberries, blackberries, strawberries and rhubarb (which goes well with the strawberries).

Nancy freezes all but the apples. She also makes jams and fruit toppings for pancakes. We store some of the apples in our refrigerator in plastic bags to prevent moisture loss and dehydrate the rest. We also peel, slice and dehydrate apples which store well in our freezer.

Our garden space usually has tomatoes, green beans, peas, radishes, poblano peppers, acorn squash, cucumbers, onions, garlic and horseradish. Nancy cans tomatoes, makes low carb barbeque sauce, ketchup and salsa and freezes asparagus, green beans, and aspargus.

Below are some old photos of our garden and yard. Photos from more recent years can be found in the "Miscellaneous Photos" section of our home page.