First Tomatoes Planted

But first things first. For my Rick's birthday, I fixed him "Fire and Ice Shrimp." Half the shrimp was in a fiery sauce of cooked salsa with homegrown pepper paste mixed with J. Lee Roy's seafood sauce. The other half was in a sauce of sour cream, dill, garden peas, and capers. I also made marinated onions and guacamole. We picked snow peas to go with, and had a feast.

Here we are drinkin beer and noshing on shrimp.

But then yesterday, we started talking about whether it was time to plant tomatoes. The answer was that it was a little too early but not a moment too soon. Based on the weather, I'd like to keep them a week or so longer in the greenhouse. But based on their growth, they needed to be in the ground! The greenhouse is stuffed and the plants are pushing the sides up.

The tall plants already need some support. We planted two Black Cherries in the back.

Rick puts the finishing touches on the first one in.

This is why we couldn't wait any longer: The root structure is deep and healthy, and the plants were already too big for 1 gallon pots.

After the two Black Cherries in space 5-1, we put 6 Principe Borghese in space 5-2. "Prince Borgs," as we call them, are determinate and used for dried tomatoes. I'll plant the rest of the Borgs at my house. Resistance is futile.

Meanwhile, Catherine set us up with a first-aid kit, all neatly packed in a plastic container.

And she communed with the chickens. Rick J. commented that the 10 x 20 space housing the chicken pen is going to produce more food than any other garden plot, and he's right.

I harvested a big bunch of onions. These are the ones I planted from seed in the lettuce box, then transplanted into the garden. We had some on our salad last night, and Rick took the rest to a work potluck.

Rick and Catherine picked a big basket of produce for dinner: snow peas, scallions, and lettuces.

The snow peas are producing like mad and need to be picked every day. They are delicious raw from the garden, or in salads, stir fries, omelettes, pizza... well... just about everything!