Still Life with Camera

The evenings are getting quite cool now, down right nippy some evenings to our summer thin blood.  Robert and I went out the other night and picked a couple of colanders full of tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and herbs.  I particularly wanted to get some of the basil inside since it's such a tender plant. Look at those fine green tomatoes. We've never really gotten the knack for what to do with them - we tried pickles last year and they were truly awful. This may be the best stock we've had though. They're a purple heirloom type which all seemed to get too ripe before I harvested them during the summer, but now they're super crisp and firm. So we made Fried Green Tomatoes with Basil Mayonnaise and they were delicious. Robert made himself BLT's and I put mine on salad greens. We used this recipe from Epicurious. http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Fried-Green-Tomatoes-with-Basil-Mayonnaise-355938 Give it a try! I was also surprised by the lavender ...

Putting a seed into some good dirt and watering it faithfully for a few days and then watching a plant emerge is one of those simple everyday miracles for me.  I planted these beans a few days ago.  Yesterday morning there was one little sprout uncurling itself from the dirt. Last night when I went out to cut some parsley and basil for dinner, the whole row was up and had grown at least an inch during the day. If that's not a miracle, I don't know what is.

We finally had our last frost pretty much on schedule during the second week of May.  I timed my last day at the University of Illinois (May 7) to go with the frost date so I could get started on a vegetable garden at our new house.  Robert, hub, offered to make cedar garden boxes for me like he did at our last place, but he's so busy and his 'honey do' list is so long, that I decided I had to be self-sufficient.  I ordered a couple of 4' x 8' kits from CostCo.  They're made out of recycled plastic and wood flour from sustainable sources so no bad chemicals and they were pretty easy to put together .  The hard part for me is filling the boxes with dirt.  And why is it hard?  Because every year early in the spring, I try to do more than my back is able to and I end up in agony for a few weeks.  Notice I said, 'every year.' My psychologist friend ( Dr. Smith when she's in that mode) asked me HOW MANY years it would take until I either remember...