I haven't mentioned my garden lately

I haven't mentioned my garden because I've been too busy picking and hauling.

I just picked about twenty pounds of tomatoes, three zucchinis and a bunch of basil. Fortunately Linda took about twenty pounds of tomatoes with her this morning to give to people at her workplace, and Jas and Sam have also taken some. Otherwise we'd be awash in the darn things even though I've been cooking so many of them so many different ways for dinners that Linda is starting to get that look she got earlier in the season when we were eating Swiss Chard every day. We've had baked stuffed tomatoes, bruschetta, tomatoes and zucchini, eggplant from Sam's garden stuffed with tomatoes, tomatoes in salads, etc., etc., etc.

Yesterday I made fresh gravy (that's sauce to you barbarians) from tomatoes, basil, onions, celery and, I'm ashamed to admit, bought meatballs. I put it on those dried cheese tortellinis they sell in the market. The best part is that I finally tried Molto Mario's trick of cooking the tortellinis very al dente and then finishing them for a couple of minutes in a large saucepan with the sauce. Excellent!

Word has it that Al R down in Florida has a garden as well. I heard that the cartoonists and animators who drew the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree show are heading to Lady Lake to take a look at Al's tomato plants. Seems they may pick one of them to star in a new show called Charlie Brown's Tomato Plant.

At least that's what I heard. . .

Have I mentioned that I'm feeling pretty proud of my garden

Have I mentioned that I'm feeling pretty proud of my garden this year. It may not be the biggest garden in Collegeville, but it's surely going to be the most efficiently productive two hundred or so square foot garden in the county, if not the country.

Firstly, the light bulb finally illuminated in my head about efficient layout after decades of having the answer right under my nose at least a couple of times a year when I've flown over the West and seen the round circles of cultivation, each watered by its patiently rotating sprinkler system. Theaters in the Round, stones arranged in henges, crop circles, fairy rings of mushrooms under the trees, and the large example of those ubiquitous bullseyes of crops out west, how have I failed to twig to the utter stupidity of squareness and the utter rightness of roundness for all these years?

Secondly, I've fenced the thing so well that the cute little fawns and their brutish parents have thus far inspected it thoroughly without detecting a weakness within their feeble capabilities of strength and reach. I've fenced the thing so well that my tomatoes are safe short of an escape from the zoo of something as strong as a buffalo or possessed of the reach of a giraffe. It's true there are a couple of minor flaws for correction next year. A patient rabbit has discovered at least three places where it can just reach through the two layers of fence low down to nip at the ends of Swiss Chard leaves.

Thirdly, roundness means that a single centrifugal sprinkler in the center can efficiently water the whole thing with the merest effort of adjustment of the outside tap. It's true the zucchinis have grown taller and more luxuriant than I've ever seen them and they're blocking part of the arc of the sprinkler, but that's a mere detail easy of solution next year. This year it only means that I need to run the sprinkler a bit longer to let those disfavored areas get their fill.