Corn towers and potatoes

It's one month after Farmer Dick's corn was knee high by the Fourth of July, and now it towers over his head! Now if our nice warm weather will just hold out a little longer ...

That's his dog, Ben Bailey, who you may remember reading about last year for his birthday party. Click here to read "Dog Party Delivers."

Even though Dave wanted to wait until later to harvest potatoes, I couldn't resist digging around a little. The reds and Yukon golds are big and beautiful, so we're having some tonight. (Dave won't know -- he's kayaking in Alaska and won't see this until he emerges from the wilderness.)

Across the street, Rosemary's nasturtiums and baby's breath are looking good:

Have a colorful day!

Pie crust and garden bounty

I learned to make a pie crust yesterday!

My neighbor, the expert, had a little lesson for myself and another neighbor. That's mine on the left, in a pottery pie dish I bought at our local farmer's market. Our crusts turned out so flaky and light that I could hardly believe it.

I never had luck making crusts before, even though I followed directions exactly. They always cracked and fell apart. The problem, I discovered yesterday, is my hot dry hands. I just had to pat extra water on the dough as I handled it.

So I took my prebaked crust home and filled it with fresh peaches and blueberries tossed in a light fruit glaze that I made from my neighbor's recipe. This is all that was left this morning, and now it's all gone. It was delicious!

After mastering crusts yesterday morning, I shelled peas from our garden for hours last night. This is so much nicer than getting food at the grocery store. I hate the atmosphere in supermarkets -- not enough natural light and too much packaging and artificial food.

I picked a nice bowl of this romaine today for a salad tonight.

The bean stalks are growing like Jack's magic beans ...

The corn is lush ...

And this is a little medley of Swiss chard, kale and beets. Tonight will be a tomato-goat cheese quiche with onions, basil and parsley from the garden in my OWN pie crust; a saute of chard, kale, red peppers and garlic; and a crisp green salad.

Have a flavorful day!

Bad broccoli babies!

Some of you have asked for updates on Farmer Dave's broccoli babies. I have bad news. They bolted and went to seed (above) before making nice bunches of broccoli. He'll try again in the fall. The peas, on the other hand, are behaving quite well (below).

While I was out weeding today, I picked a salad for lunch and some young onions to carmelize for sandwich topping. The kale leaves are for the rabbit's lunch. (Nothing but the best for Bunners.)

Have a colorful day!

Farmer Dave

That's Farmer Dave, above, tucking broccoli babies into his garden. I guess we're putting down roots at our rental house, because this year he dug up a HUGE garden plot, started oodles of seedlings downstairs (that's his grow operation, left), and is well on his way to planting enough produce to feed our neighborhood.

Those are apple trees behind him, which our neighbor has been pruning back into shape. Julia has high hopes for making apple sauce and apple butter and apple cobblers this fall.