Harvesting the goodness

We started a project earlier this summer - a vegetable garden.  I put in a 4'x4' raised bed for vegetables.  The bottom half of the soil is simple top soil. The top half is Miracle-Grow vegetable soil.  That mix has really worked, and I've gotten to combine my new found passion for the garden with my longstanding love of food and food related activity.

In other word - the garden has exploded.

It started out with what we thought would be a modest mix of tomatoes, zucchini, lettuce, and a pepper plant.  (The pepper plant [front left plant above] has disappeared - hasn't been seen in months - totally overwhelmed by sun stealing neighbors.)

Now we have:

The lettuce have been eaten and we are almost done with the zucchini and cucumbers.  But as the heat of summer is developing, so are the tomatoes.

But first a few memories of the cooler days.

We've had vegetables fresher than anything we could ever find, even at the farmers markets or road side stands we've been visiting for years. It's been a challenge to live up to the freshness of the ingredients and find ways to prepare them.  I will admit that this summer I have started munching on raw cucumbers, just cutting some up with a sandwich or burger/hot dog.

But the heat of August is here, and the tomatoes have arrived.

These will be ready in the next week or two.  Right now we are getting cherry tomatoes and some of the earlier ripe varietals.

And just today my wife went out and came back with this bowl of beauty.

I don't know how we're going to tackle it yet - but we'll try to rise to the challenge.