Garden stuff

Today we were outside in the garden picking ANOTHER huge bowl of tomatoes - I think I've picked easily thirty quarts of tomatoes in the past week - we've been giving them away like crazy to Heide, to the roofers, Michael brought a bag to work to dole out. If I feel industrious this afternoon or tomorrow maybe I'll do some canning. I also picked a ton of basil, five or six green peppers, a huge handful of shallots, yet more broccoli (I'm stunned that the plants are still producing!), and a double handful of yellow beans. The total filled two huge bowls, and now I have plenty of fresh veggies for the next few days.

Michael helped me with the garden, too, and was so tickled to be there with me. He kept saying, "Michael in the garden!" and dancing around. There may have been a few refrains of "Garden song" in there, too. I'd pick yellow beans and put them on the ground next to his foot, then he'd look down, gasp in excitement, them pick them up and put them in the basket. He especially loves to find the broccoli under the broad leaves, saying, "Oh! Brockee!" When we were done he said, "Bye garden!"

I froze the yellow beans and broccoli, then washed the shallots and hung them in a recycled mesh bag in the pantry. I used a couple of them and some fresh garlic from my stepdad to make guacamole out of the remaining two Floridian avocados that were languishing in my fridge and looking as if they were threatening to bolt any day now. Also a couple of tomatoes, of course. It came out good. I could eat guacamole every day of the week. Next year I need to grow some cilantro! Yeah!

In fact, my fingers still smell like garlic. Yummy. I keep smelling them. For some reason garlic is a very strong "foody" smell to me, in very much the generic sense. As in I smell it and think, "food".