Attempts and Discoveries

It's no secret that I have a black thumb.  Maybe I've mentioned that before.  I will not post pictures of the two tomato plants that failed produce a single edible tomato, one of which is nothing but leaf jerky hanging limply from a Topsy Turvy in the middle of our yard.  I even spent time combing the Texas A&M Tomato Solver website for solutions.

Today I transplanted the one surviving plant, which has never even produced a proto-tomato, into a pot.  I'm hoping that in doing so I didn't totally massacre the roots and that it likes its new (totally inconvenient) spot in the very middle of the yard, the only spot that gets sun for more than a few hours a day.  It's probably too late for anything to come of the plant, but I'm keep my black fingers crossed.  I also, for funzies, planted some garlic and scallions I had doing time in my pantry.  

We've been getting Greenling baskets for awhile lately.  For months, we did the Local Farms basket, but during the third straight week of okra, I decided to start selecting my own basket (which led us to the delicious discovery of Pluots).  There was something lacking, though.  I was missing the joy of shopping for your food - being able to smell, touch and see everything before making your selections.

So we cancelled our basket for the week and went to the Sunset Valley Farmers' Market with the hubby and kids.  There we visited with the folks from Kitchen's Pride and walked off with a heavy bag full of oyster mushrooms, stopped by the stand for McKemie Homegrown and picked up some absolutely gorgeous purple bell and anaheim peppers along with some lemon basil, and of course Johnson's Backyard Garden, whose stand is like a supermarket aisle with all their options, where I snagged some onions, sweet potatoes, sweet potato greens and a butternut squash.  Our last shop stop was for tomatoes at the B5 Farm stand.  Monster asked for some juice, so we stopped at a stand that was selling some serious juice - Monster and the Hubby got a watermelon coconut, and I snagged a Basil Lime with San Pelligrino.  Absolutely perfect, since the day was starting to get hot.  All told, we spent about $14 less than we would've with Greenling, got to meet our farmers, and got to fondle our foods before we purchased.

As a result, I've been on a baking frenzy:  a peach-pluot pie in a shortbread crust and a coconut-basil cake (we ate it like pancakes this morning).