Triumphs

I feel good when the kids do something that lets me know I'm effecting them in a positive way.  I felt a bit of triumph yesterday when Jr.'s only complaint about summer camp is that the food is not as healthy as she would like (they served hamburgers one day, grilled cheese the next).  When I dropped her off in the morning, for her afternoon snack she chose a real fruit strawberry popsicle over frozen cookie dough, push-ups, frosty, or an ice cream stick.  Yeah!

But, when I picked her up she was eating an ice cream stick and really enjoying it.  She said they brought her the wrong one.  I give her kudos for her initial choice.

You have any triumphs?

Nasturtiums

I can read Jr.'s mind here, "all you can eat buffet."

I see low lying flowering plants perfect for dogs to pee on.  I'm not sure whether her Dad let her eat these or not.  We usually only let her when they are up and out of the way of dogs. Not sure how far off the trail these were.

Nasturtiums are edible in their entirety; flowers, leaves and nectar.

tomato thief!

We were waiting for one last tomato to ripen before our first harvest. I could already taste them drizzled with balsamic vinegar and accompanied by little balls of mozzarella cheese.  Then today, to my horror one is missing.  Squirrel? Neighbor?  So we harvested a few asap before the thief returned.

Here is the empty sepal (upper left just above tomato). At least that is what I think they call the leafy green structure that is (or once was in this case) connected to the fruit.

This tomato plant came to us as a volunteer.  Volunteer, I sound like I know something about tomatoes.   I don't.  I learned the term from my father-in-law who patiently listened to me tell a story of how after our neighbor who had a raised bed of organic tomatoes moved,  tomato plants miraculously began growing from the ground where the box use to be.  Actually, considering the soil around our building it is pretty miraculous.  "Oh yes" he said, "you have volunteers." They grow on their own from the fallen fruit. We transplanted this one into a pot and it's doing well enough. We've relocated a few caterpillars who were eating our leaves and some leaves are looking pretty saggy, but we have tomatoes.