![\"July](\"https:\/\/www.auntiepasto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/IMG_0480.jpg\" "\\"IMG_0480\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nCheck it out! Four fairytale eggplants, aren’t they cute? One white eggplant, six black pearl cherry tomatoes, three zucchini, a couple of pattypan squash, a “sweet pepper Mohawk!”*, a lemon cucumber (actually two, but I found the second one later this evening) a few remaining blueberries from the first flush, and ten whopping ounces of strawberries — a mix of Pretty in Red, Pretty in Pink, and Seascape. That’s over half a pound! In one day! All it needed was the sun to come back out …<\/p>\n
I’m so pleased. (: I’ll admit that I’m not<\/em> the world’s most experienced gardener. This is my first year growing everything in the veggie dish except for the cherry tomatoes. It’s my second year growing strawberries and blueberries. Cherry tomatoes … well, I’ve tried, but this is the first time that I’ve ever had them look so good and be so promising for lots of ‘matoes. I’m excited.<\/p>\n Uncle Pasto is of the opinion that if things continue this way, we will end up with too much food. Heh. Maybe. But it’s tasty. If it comes down to it, I will just have to beg people to take miniature eggplants off my hands. (:<\/p>\n So I took everything in the veggie bowl except for the cucumber and the cherry tomatoes (we ate the cherry tomatoes at dinner), added a few fingerling potatoes that I harvested a few days ago, and the zephyr squash, and cut them all into roughly equal pieces or left them whole. I tossed them with olive oil, salt and pepper, and put them on the grill while Uncle Pasto was cooking up some BBQ chicken — this is in preparation for Wednesday when we will be really busy. I let them cook, and pulled them off as they became ready, nice and grilled and soft-but-not-too-soft, yum. Then I chopped them into bite-sized pieces and tossed them all together. I’d been thinking about adding some more olive oil and balsamic, but I might actually not. They’re really good just as they are — the flavors are so pure.<\/p>\n I owe you folks pictures of my garden as it is now — you won’t believe how much it’s grown. Or maybe you will, if you grow your own food. I spotted my first green bean today, along with lots of other microbeans, and the tomatoes are slowly starting to turn, one at a time. It’s just a real pleasure to be out there every day, seeing what has started to ripen or come ready. (:<\/p>\n