Tomato success!

My main goal this year was to grow a great crop of tomatoes. Now they're ripening all at once! Pink Brandywine, Black Prince, Park's Whopper and Rutgers pictured here.


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The freshest salad comes from the garden

The best thing for a part time gardener is a fast payoff, and nothing is faster than planting salad greens. I give 'em about two weeks and then start trimming off the tender baby greens for salads. I planted twelve different kinds of lettuce and salad mix this year, so I'll always have enough. Yum!

Italian Roaster: 1

I picked and grilled my first Italian Roaster pepper tonight. Picked green, instead of letting it ripen to red. Mild flavor, slightly bitter. Will probably be sweet when fully ripe.









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Eggplant, at last!

It took a long time, but I finally spy tiny eggplants growing. It looks like an alien species!



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Smart move

Moved the trellis directly behind my cucumber plant.


Also, look at my gigantic pepper!


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Cucumber wonder

I am very impressed with my cucumber plant this year. It has broad, beautiful dark green leaves, and it is a climbing vine so it looks really lush. I'm trying to get it to climb up the trellis. A perfect summer garden backdrop.





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Crook(shanks)neck Squash

The final film in the Harry Potter series is coming out at midnight! Hence my garden/HP pun. I'm very excited for the last movie; we'll be viewing it tomorrow night and then hunkering down for Carmaggedon (405 fwy closed all weekend).

Some lovely pictures. You can see my rapidly growing Italian Roasting peppers, cucumber growing up the side wall with tiny cukes sprouting, and baby yellow crookneck (Crookshanks) squash.








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Green beans in my soup!

First serving of green beans....


...added to my lentil soup. Yum!


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It's getting ripe out there!

I'm holding my breath until my first tomato is ripe--please let no critter decide to eat it before we're ready to harvest! 

And, check out plucked green bean #1. We ate it raw. Very good.

Squirrels and beer

As promised... a blog post on squirrels and beers!

This Saturday we went down to San Diego to take in a few of their nearly 40 breweries and to visit the zoo. Our favorite stop was at Port Brewing/Lost Abbey. A small scale company located in a nondescript, warehouse block-style building, you wouldn't know it's there except for a large tank outside the building emblazoned with the brewing companies' logos. I especially enjoyed the gorgeous hops vine growing up the tower. While we may be some ways away from attempting to brew our own beer, a decorative hops plant may be in our near future!

The big news this week was that Marcia, the squirrel rescue lady, returned to our backyard with a new box full of adolescent squirrels. We discovered Marcia last year when we rescued a baby squirrel and she told us that when we was old enough, she'd bring him back to our backyard to live! We decided to sign up for the yearly delivery. Doing our part for the "wildlife" of Los Angeles. They're really cute too.