First Significant Tomato Harvest

Yes, I know it has been a while since I've blogged. I blame sheer laziness as the main culprit. So I'll be posting a lot in the next few days to catch everyone up.

With all the humidity and rain we've had lately, I finally was able to get a decent harvest of cherry, sugar sunsweet, and currant tomatoes (the tiny ones). They are all sweet, juicy, and delicious (a few didn't make it into the bowl.)

And yes, you see the first okra! Within a day or two, I'll have enough to coat with egg, roll in Italian seasoned bread crumbs, and fry up for some snacky deliciousness!

In fact, I'm a little tickled by the way the okra is growing--I planted them in a row, and apparently the placement of the plants is such that each one gets just a little less sun than the next, which makes it just a little smaller, which means that it will take just a little more time to produce. In sum, I should have okra plants producing for a long time to come!

I also have more green peppers coming on. I picked one pepper--along with some lettuce--last week for salads, and I have been savoring it, salad by salad. If you haven't had a home-grown green pepper, you don't know what you are missing! It is cool and crunchy--not rubbery like the ones you buy in the grocery store. The juice dribbles down your chin as you bite into its delicious, shiny green flesh. Even though the flesh of the pepper isn't waxed (like they are in some stores), it shines in the sun, a flawless mirror of natural beauty. And it even smells like a pepper! I have more peppers on the way--you can glimpse one in the picture that is very close to being picked, hiding amid the weeds--and I intend to savor each and every bite.

Something Strange is A-Foot

We've had some stiff summer winds lately, but I'm pretty sure an object like this one--which is heavy--doesn't just blow into a garden. Plus, our yard is fenced in. And the neighbors, who seem to be mature, upright citizens who keep their lawns well manicured by paying outrageous sums to landscaping companies, don't seem the type to just toss a shoe over the fence. We also haven't had any visitors who have lost a size 9 1/2 B sandal (and wouldn't they notice that before they left if they had?).

I have seen bunnies near my garden, and they dash away at the smallest sign that I might actually look in their direction. Could they have, perhaps, dragged the shoe in? Did a prancing deer leap over my fence, dislodging a shoe that it had its hoof tangled in? Did Mother Nature come walking through the garden, leaving a shoe behind like Cinderella, hoping for a princely sky god to find her and return the shoe so they could live happily ever after? And if so, wouldn't she wear a much larger, more practical gardening shoe?

If this is your shoe, would you please come claim it?