A feast for the eyes and mouth. I brought this in and the setting sun
caught the colors through the kitchen window.



I'm so happy to have vine ripe organic tomatoes fresh from the garden.



Pictures like this inspire me to paint. Hah. (I chuckle because life is crazy right now with a one year old and I don't see painting as an option until I retire, if and when. )

These pics were taken a while ago, so the garden looks quite different now.
(As in pole beans have been ripped out already.)



Little Man has been very patient to hang on the fence while I pick beans.
The dog and the chickens help keep him entertained.







This is the first time we've grown patty pan squash, and I think they are kind of weird. I've seen them before but I must admit to being deterred by the shape, of all things! *lol* I had a hard time trying to wrap my head around how to cut the things up. hey are very sweet and seeds are small.
Good raw in salads or marinated and put on the grill.

I thought I had tasted carrots.

Growing up my grandmother had some connection where she could go and get the culls from a carrot plant nearby. She would show up on the appointed day, her truck filled to the brim with box upon box of carrots. We called it a Carrot Plague. It came more often than we liked.

We ate them, juiced them, and put tons in the freezer. We fed them to the goats, rabbits and chickens until we were all sick of orange. The animals had orange mouths,
I had orange hands and was heartily tired of running the food processor.
 
But none of them ever tasted like fresh homegrown, straight from
the dirt and quickly scrubbed, organic to boot.

They are so....so, carroty!  And so orangey. I love them.






I think these are Danvers Half Longs, supposedly good for soil with more clay.
 I must say they did rather well, thought these were the biggest I pulled.
Nematodes had set in on the last ones I dug, but they still tasted yummy.

Here are some greens I harvested earlier this year. Broccoli, the best I've ever eaten, beets, kale, swiss chard, turnip and broccoli greens. Yes, you read that last right. They looked so much like collards we decided to try them, with a thumbs up after cooking. I hated to waste all that greenery, and next year I will take even more advantage of them. Swiss chard is still my favorite though, and a fun way to fix them is this recipe from Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.   It's called Eggs In A Nest - first recipe listed.  I usually prepare this without the tomatoes and might throw in some crumbled sausage or something.   http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/Recipes.html




"Grammy" also came to visit and helped out with Little Man and the garden.
 He tried to help thin the carrots.

I haven't been around in a while, but I'm getting the urge to blog again. Therefore I might be doing a lot of back posting, if ya don't mind. Plus I need to check up on old friends and get back in the loop again, if a certain someone pictured below will let me. *grin*

We're finally getting things planted in the garden to get a start on the year. Not knowing what else to do with Little Man, we brought him out with us to enjoy the fresh air. And dirt.

He had "the point" going on at the time.

I think he really enjoyed himself.







I think he looks so cute in his baseball cap.  He really likes the chickens, but they quickly lose interest when they realize there's no food and his fingers aren't nice treats to eat.