From the garden this week

The garden is in full swing, and it's turning out to be a good year for tomatoes. I'm glad I planted some sturdy hybrid determinate types, because they're early and produce a lot of fruit all at once. With the exception of one tiny rain-split Berkeley Tie Dye (middle top on the first photo) all of the tomatoes I've gotten so far have been determinates. But! My eight heirloom plants are also loaded with fruit but taking forever to start ripening. Soon!

Here's what I've picked over the last four or five days:

We've also picked a LOT of green beans; this is just a small handful I got the other day. 

Still going strong.

There are about a dozen cucumbers in the fridge at the moment, but now the vines are almost worn out. It's turning out to be a disappointing year for cucumber production, but I'd rather have a bounty of tomatoes anyway. Last year there were a ton of cucumbers, but the tomatoes did diddly-squat. Now that's disappointing.

So, on to peppers! I haven't picked any yet, because I like to wait until they're mostly orange and red, but there are tons and tons of Jalapenos, Serranoes, Cowhorns, Cayennes, Poblanos, Tabascos, and Giant Marconi peppers...

 

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These pretty Tabasco peppers are our favorite, just for the beauty of the plant. It's hard to get a good photo of them because it's such a low, compact plant. 

And when someone named these peppers "Giant Marconi", they weren't lying! Look at the size of those monsters!

Cowhorns.

A busy start to summer

It's been a busy few weeks around here, but I still find it hard to believe that June is almost half over. Finding time to blog has been a challenge so I've been away for longer that I meant to be. Things should settle down a little now, so I hope to be around more. 

Last weekend my mom came to visit. It was at her insistence, and the first time I'd seen her since the end of 2023 (right before dad died). Things between us have devolved to almost no contact over the last two years, which, actually, is fine with me. I only agreed to see her out of a lingering sense of obligation. As far as I'm concerned, our relationship is pretty much over. That hasn't been an easy decision to come to, but I've decided it's best for my mental health.

So anyway, she came over for a couple of hours and it was okay. I made lunch and put on a polite face, and she was on her best (but still not great) behavior. I breathed a sigh of relief when she left and was glad nothing had been too weird or awkward...haha! Joke's on me! The next night she messaged me with some truly bizarre thoughts and accusations. Crazy stuff. I know she's taken to drinking again over the past few years, and also takes a lot of assorted pills, so maybe she was drunk or high. Or maybe she's having some sort of undiagnosed mental health issue. The next day she deleted the messages and apologized (just as I predicted she would), but instead of taking responsibility for her behavior she blamed (get this!) the fact that she's diabetic for her outburst. I know lots of people with diabetes, and not once has a single one of them come at me with weird accusations and spoiling for a fight! Of course, ever since she was diagnosed a few years back, that's been her go-to excuse for everything so I shouldn't be too surprised. This was only more confirmation that I'm doing the right thing to keep contact with her strictly limited. She wants more from me than I can give her, since it would mean having to sacrifice my mental well-being to maintain a closer relationship. I've worked through most of that, and I'm simply not interested.

On to better and happier stuff. Thursday was my 19th wedding anniversary! I really did good when I picked my husband! :)   I took the day off work, and with my regular summer Friday off, I'm having a four-day weekend! Yesterday we went thrift store shopping, hoping to find a couple of interesting lamps for the house. We didn't have any luck, but it was fun looking around. The actual gift we ended up buying ourselves is mainly a gift for me: a nice set of stainless-steel cookware. It's going to be great to get rid of my old cheap nonstick pots and pans that I've been "making do" with for years! I love to cook, and like everything else it's easier with good tools. Gregg really likes and appreciates my cooking, so he said it benefits him in the end, too. 

We're also making plans to go away for a few days, but not until fall. There are really nice waterfront villas at a state park on Lake Murray (a couple of hours west of here) that we'd like to rent, but you have to make reservations several months out. Apparently, they're very popular and so all booked up for the summer. We prefer to go in the fall anyway, when the weather will be much nicer, so that's not an issue. As fast as the weeks fly by September/October will be here in a flash. 

Speaking of summer, check out a small sample of the stuff I've picked from the garden in the last week!

That's the other thing that's been keeping me busy lately: the garden. There's always something to do out there this time of year, and when I'm not working in it, I'm sitting on the porch admiring it! :)

Crazy tomato and a careless cook

Last week I picked my first (non-cherry) tomato of the year. I'd planned to let it ripen on the vine a little more, but a day or two of heavy rain was predicted and I was afraid it would split. Once a tomato is at least half ripe, finishing it on the countertop doesn't hurt anything, but a rain-split tomato is pretty much ruined, in my opinion.

Y'all...this tomato was kind of freaky! Too bad John's not still having the Novelty Veg Competition, because my first tomato was a Strange Bird. :)

I posted this picture on Facebook, and a guy I went to

 high school with asked me if my bird had pollinated it.  LOL!!

Last night the tomato was finally ready to be eaten. I was really excited about the first tomato of the year! I had such a good dinner planned: grilled marinated chicken thighs, fresh green beans (from my garden!) sauteed in olive oil, butter, garlic, and lemon juice, and a salad made from lettuce and cucumbers, also from the garden. Everything was coming along beautifully, and the very last thing I did was slice the tomato to add to our salads..

...and in the process, slice open my left thumb.

I couldn't believe I'd done this to myself again. Almost exactly two years ago I was cutting red peppers to add to a pasta salad, got careless, and nearly took off my left forefinger. It was a really bad cut that I probably should have gotten stitches for, and I've got a scar and some lingering numbness to this day.

This cut didn't turn out to be quite that bad, but it's still pretty bad. I bled and bled, all the while holding it tight under cold running water to try to stop the bleeding. Gregg ran for bandages and the dogs milled around my feet, nervous. Then, just like last time, I started to feel hot, and sick, and dizzy. I had to rush to the bedroom and lie down to keep from fainting. 

Fun times!! Ha.

So anyway, back to the tomato. Once I started feeling okay again, I got up and insisted Gregg eat his supper even though I didn't feel like eating myself (understatement). I ended up covering my plate and putting it in the fridge, and there it still sits. It looks like I won't be trying that crazy tomato after all. Oh, well.

I'm wounded. Wounded, I tell you.