The Garden's Goodness

We only have a small lot on which our house sits, and we have what is just a tiny garden along the side that gets about the least sun during the day, but that is where our garden sits. In it we have planted tomatoes, butternut squash, peppers of a couple of varieties, cabbage, green leaf lettuce, red leaf lettuce, radishes, eggplant, broccoli, green beans and yellow wax beans. We also have some of the same in a few pots scattered around the rest of our backyard, and we have a potted strawberry bush/vine). This year has not been the best for our small crop, but it still has been fairly good in production. We treated the earth well, using lots of compost from our small compost pile, and the earth has rewarded us with a small bounty of delicious fruit and vegetables, and a good amount of earthworms for my Musk Turtle. Of course Linda also has a lot of nice potted flowers and a small flower garden too.

I think my favorite produce from the yard this year has been our yellow tomatoes. We have 2 varieties, a yellow plum tomato (not doing all that well, producing but the tomatoes do not ripen on the vine, so I ripen them inside a brown paper bag), and a Better-Boy yellow tomato that has produced medium to fairly large fruits for us. Those larger yellow tomatoes are just scrumptious as far as I am concerned, though they are not Linda's favorites. They are less acidic, an milder in taste than red tomatoes, but they have a fine flavor that is great straight, put on a sandwich mixed into a nice garden salad, or in a homemade salsa.

The butternut squash is just about ready for the harvest; and I almost cannot wait for it. Linda has a great recipe for baking this mashed and covered with butter and garlic. It is absolutely wonderful on the taste buds.

As for the flowers, I suppose some of my favorites are the Black Eyed Susan's (a variety of daisy). I think that is what they are called anyhow. Another favorite or I should say a favorite area is around the small patio out front where Linda has a nice variety of potted flowers. While the flowers still look great, it is getting obvious, by looking at the state of the plants in our vegetable garden that summer is winding down, and that autumn cannot be far behind. If only we had an apple tree, we'd be picking them soon too.

All the best,

Glenn B