Berries: The low carb fruit

First bowl of blackberries

The Carbometer garden is adding in blackberries and raspberries today.  I've been planning the addition as far back as the sketch of the garden, however, I could never find producing trees/bushes for sale until yesterday.  Blackberries and raspberries are something I wouldn't think of starting from a twig, like I did the cherries; which have produced 12 cherries in the last 2 years.

I was willing to invest in healthy plants and transplant for the blackberries, raspberries and I hope one day soon, blueberries.  Our strawberries are coming in well.  A pint of strawberries is harvested about every four days since the beginning of May.

Berries are lower in carbs and still high in fiber.  Raspberries and blackberries are a super food for the low carb advocate as they have a high count of fiber as compared to blueberries and strawberries.

1 cup of blackberries is 14 carbs with 8 grams of fiber
1 cup of strawberries - halves is 12 carbs with 3 grams fiber
1 cup of raspberries - 14.6 carbs with 8 grams of fiber
1 cup of blueberries - 21 carbs with 3.6 grams of fiber
1 cup of cherries - 19 carbs with 2.5 grams of fiber

The care of the berries does require plant food, which I am not used to doing. Hopefully, I will not miss a step with the berries and have a garden fail.

Happy Carb Counting

The Carbometer Gardens' Largest Harvest and Introducing Salt and Pepper

The largest harvest yet!

As it's been literally since Thanksgiving since I've written a post for the blog, I thought I had best update the blog.

Recently we have celebrated our largest single harvest. I harvest the garden every 4 days, the lettuce is usually always in need of harvesting and we have been taking carrots, broccoli, radishes, onions and asparagus on an as needed or as available basis. In April, after a nice rain storm, I noticed that the garden, especially the carrots was starting to become overly ripe. A few carrots looked absolutely huge and they were! We've been enjoying carrots with everything and now we have peas to go with our carrots.

With the nice rains of April also came a mini heat wave which bolted the spinach and some of the cooler variety of lettuces I had planted in November. I was sad to see the specialty lettuce go, but I'm able to plant more spinach. I'll need to start seeding the specialty lettuces later in the summer to enjoy them next winter. Lettuce likes cool weather, temps in the 60's and 70's and we are likely to well exceed that this summer. I have planted a lettuce which seems very robust as long as I keep it covered in the summer, it's called Cesar lettuce. That has become our staple lettuce.

Deviled Eggs - less than a carb!

As far as my personal progress on my low carb diet, I have gained some weight but managed to stay within my maintenance range. I do eat more carbs per day than when I was actively trying to lose weight and now average 150 - 175 carbs a day. I was not able to hike daily as I had prior to March 2015 due to a car accident. I am just now starting to hike 2 - 3 times a week. I'm confident, once I am able to regularly hike and do the recreational activities I love, I'll be back to the lower end of maintenance weight range.

For a low carb dish deconstruction, I'm sharing deviled eggs! Recently, I found myself with way too many eggs from our hens so I decided to try to make deviled eggs.  There is only .5 carbs per egg because...mayo and mustard have no carbs and an egg has only 1 carb.

Here's a welcome to spring!  May you have your walking shoes on and enjoying the great outdoors.

Introducing our new ducks: Salt and Pepper

Happy Carb Counting!