Come on, Yarn Dyers! What about THIS!!!

I think the color of this onion (a volunteer grown by your's truly and boy is it HUGE) is beautiful. Now - if only folks who dye yarn could capture the variation of the colors and put it in a yarn. You could call it 'Onion'. And look at the garlic! See the color in that! In fact, you could create a whole line based on food. Tell you what, I'll supply the photos, you supply the color. What a concept!

I'd buy it! Fingering weight, please.

Bean, beans, the magical fruit....

It's harvest... a CRAZY time of year when you need to harvest what you have, pull what is not producing anymore, start seeds for the fall/ winter garden, amend the soil, and plant for the winter. So I am harvesting like a fiend, clearing the fields of what is spent, and praying that the tomatoes keep on going! There are two types of beans: green (where you pick them and eat them pod and all. They can be purple, yellow, or green, but they are all categorized as green bean in my book) and Shelling. Shelling beans are left on the vine to dry. They keep for the year. When you go to the grocery store and see pinto and kidney beans in one pound plastic packages, you know those are shelling beans. You know, you have to soak them in water and then cook them to get them soft. Yeah - those!

Yesterday I harvested all the shelling beans from two gardens.

They are beautiful. These beans are called Calypso, although some folks call them Yin and Yang. The Baroness calls them Orca because it reminds her of a great white shark. These beans are lovely, round and most of them are black and white. Some are all black or all white, but those are few and far between.

I'll post photos of the others as I shell them. They are all different. And beautiful.

Tomatoes, ready to roast

Heirloom Tomatoes on a bed of sliced onions. A little salt and pepper, some minced garlic and a bit of olive oil.

Roast until all liquid is gone. About an hour or so at about 400*.

Use, or freeze and use in the winter. Great on pizza, in sauce, bruschetta.... yum!

In the pan are: orange paste, orange globe, Marvel Stripe, black krim, Brandywine, 4th of July, and a yellow mystery tomato.

First of the summer harvest

I get so excited when we begin to harvest and actually eat the food we've grown from seed. I've encouraged these little guys to grow, and sure enough... they do!



Here is the first harvest from Garden #2, the Mayor's garden (the carrots are from my backyard).

Tri-colored green beans - green, yellow and purple. The purple are my favorite. These are a bush bean variety, so they will produce for a limited amount of time.

And then we have my favorite... patty pan squash. When I was a kid I called it flying saucer squash. Whatever you call it, it is really yummy.

I had carrots and beets from my garden and wanted to roast them, but it was too hot. So I searched on the Internet and found a couple crock pot recipes. Thought I'd give it a try:




I cut up beets, carrots (both planted last fall), butternut squash (harvested last fall and stored in the garage), onions (harvested last week), garlic (harvested a few weeks ago from my backyard) and potatoes (store bought) into 2 inch chunks. Then I put in about 3 tablespoons of olive oil, some salt and pepper and mixed it up. I added a couple tablespoons of water and topped it off with a sprig of dried rosemary (also from my garden), put the lid on and cooked on high for 2 hours and low for 8 1/2. It turned out pretty good!