Fresh, fresh, fresh

I know the veggies I get from my CSA are fresh.  They pick & pack the same day, then I pick it up the next.   And they are definitely delicious (in a vegetable kind of way).  But yet, when I go out to my blueberry bushes (which are still protected from the birds) and get a handful of blueberries, they are even better.  The sugar snap peas that my daughter picks off the almost non-existent vines taste superior even to the ones from the farm.
I don't want to be a farmer, but it would be nice if I could feed myself  because picking and popping the goods into my mouth without any interference or additional steps just tastes better.

Damn the groundhog!

We just came back from a lovely week at the Jersey Shore (that would be the family-oriented Wildwood Crest, not the drunken party town shown on the TV show) and I was anxious to see my garden.  We'd had some wild storms at the shore and I was wondering if they'd affected my plants.
Well, the plants didn't seem the worse for wear from the rain, but I'll say that I came home to this:

I suspected a groundhog, but I wasn't sure.  Just in case it's difficult to tell, the leaves on the broccoli plants are mostly eaten (but it didn't eat the florets), the leaves & the potential sunflowers are gone.  Only the stem remains, sticking out like a mistake.  Also, in the background, the cucumber plants were chewed up.  I mean, really?  You couldn't eat something else?  Like the neighbors' stuff, maybe????

I have a lot of sympathy for farmers.  If I had to feed myself, I'd starve.  

On the bright side, the netting seems to have protected my blueberries.