What to Do with All of Those Eggplants, Zucchinis, and Tomatoes

The kitchen counter is piled high with tomatoes, zucchinis and eggplants. This year has created a bountiful record harvest.

William Sonoma has the answer with this recipe which uses all three of these garden items.

Only Mother Nature Can Paint Like This!

If you are in a decorating mode and someone says stick to a natural palette, you most likely think of browns, taupes, beiges. But Mother Nature is a bit more inventive with her natural colors. Look at the vivid, screaming tones of these sunflowers. AMAZING.

And look how effectively these sunflowers camouflage the two bees collecting pollen.

A Weekend Get-Away with Friends

A group of friends took a late summer weekend to visit Santa Barbara. I love ivy covered buildings.

Yellow Zucchini

Renee's Garden loves to package seeds from like vegetables with color variations in the same package. I love it, too. I love my tri-color beans (gold, burgundy, green) and tri-color zucchini (under squash) which are fancy pastel green, buttercup yellow and dark green. I often prepare zucchini by slicing with skin on then sauteeing in a little butter. With the various color skins, the dish takes on a whole new look.

Planting an Eagle Scout Project

Before
After
We helped with an Eagle Scout project on Saturday. The project was for the city of Mission Viejo. We helped a soon to be Eagle candidate plant 1200 gallon plants on a good sized slope at a local park. The city had decided a few years ago to have the whole slope help local boy scouts achieve their Eagle rank. The slope stretches throughout the park and the entire area was planted by boy scouts. The city official thinks it has saved the city over $100,000.

Our troop kicked it up and started around 8:00. We were finished by 10:30. This was amazing. Lucky for us the hillside was just about perfect for digging--although a few patchy areas were like concrete. Additionally, we had a good mix of adults, past Eagles, and scouts. Most did division of labor--one person dig, the other person plant. Worked out beautifully.

The mix of plants are plumbago and honeysuckle.

Three Cloud Nines

This is the year of the eggplant. I have had great success with my standard eggplant, my Japanese eggplants and my cloud nines. We've friend eggplant twice and I think some ratatouille is in order for the weekend.

Here is a great English recipe for ratatouille. I like using aubergines, courgettes and tinned tomatoes in my recipes...instead of eggplants, zucchinis, and canned tomatoes!

Stephanotis

Stephanotis always takes my breath away when I see it growing on the vine. Its thick, waxy flower is so stunning among these other plants. This vignette was located under a tree where it clearly was in partial shade throughout the day.