part of the whole: Gardens, Breakfasts and Dogs

Good morning, glories! While I was sitting at my desk yesterday morning, I couldn't help but admire the pattern my coffee was making in the mug while I was slow to drink it, so I had to take a snap.

It's no secret that I've been loving my garden this season! And I'm not the only one. Occasionally I forget to check the squash, and they get too big to eat. What does that mean? Dog toys!

Wheeler has her mouth full with a piece of summer squash.

Marty gnawing away on his piece of squash.

Besides the squash, I've had some lovely yellow tomatoes. They're really tasty, and a perfect size. So far they are the earliest to ripen and I've picked a half dozen or so. I'm also super excited because tomato plants started coming up in places where some rotten tomatoes must have fallen last year, and at least one is my absolute favorite, but most difficult seed to find - the Garden Peach tomato!

And finally, how about these "green" beans? They are an heirloom bean - a deep purple on the vine, but supposedly when you cook them, they turn an emerald green. I love them too much raw to cook them, so I suppose I won't see that magic trick in the kitchen.

So what's with all these funky veggies? I really love the heirloom varieties, and this season that's pretty much all I bought when I was picking out my seeds. Do you realize how much genetic diversity you are preserving by choosing one of the "weird" varieties, as opposed to your typical big, red tomato or regular old bush bean? Saving seeds used to be a necessary part of the farming process for farmers years ago, which is how we've been able to have so many wonderful varieties available to us today.

Also, you may have at some point heard about monoculture (growing all of the same variety) versus polyculture (growing many varieties). That's kind of the idea here, too. I'm growing about 6-8 different varieties of tomatoes, all in my backyard garden. Again, it preserves the genetic diversity, but may also be beneficial if pests decide to attack any of my plants.

I'm not the only gardener around. Ashley loves to spend evenings in his garden (and I love that about him!) and often brings me some of the veggies he's grown. Currently I have a handful of hot peppers drying. It was pretty cool over the past couple of weeks to watch them turn from green to bright red and shrink up into almost fake looking little peppers.

But this past weekend, he brought a paper bag full of red and white potatoes. We washed them, chopped them up, cooked them in olive oil and sprinkled them with a hefty dose of Old Bay. Delicious!