Whining about my garden...

Since I planted my garden late, I have not had the opportunity to harvest anything other than herbs so far this summer. Over this past weekend, my little plot spewed forth two tomatoes, two yellow squash, and a little cantaloupe. I continue to urge the green beans to do the same, but for this small amount I am very grateful!

The cantaloupe was very sweet and I can’t believe that these plants were the result of some volunteer plants, borne of seed from cantaloupe scraps tossed in the compost pile last fall which never properly “cooked”.

The yellow squash are tender and made a delicious side to the grilled tuna steaks over this past weekend.

And the tomatoes. I have been buying “local” tomatoes at the grocery store; they looked like those which are offered most of the year and tasted only marginally better. These, the tomatoes which I finally picked from my garden plants, are real tomatoes. What an incredibly delicious taste! For the first one, I made a simple salad dressed with white wine vinegar and olive oil. For the second, still not wanting to “mix it up” with too many other flavors, I made a couple of open-faced sandwiches.

No recipe involved here. I sprayed thick slices of rustic Italian bread with cooking spray and grilled until lightly toasted on one side. I removed them from the grill, flipped them over, spread with a thin layer of pesto, then placed a thick slice of tomato and a thin slice of mozzarella on the grilled side. These were then placed back on the grill until the cheese was melted, and torn pieces of fresh basil sprinkled over. These were sooooo good!

Since the grill was fired up, I cooked a couple of chicken and red pepper sausages which I had bought at Trader Joe’s and these were darn good, too.

I am disappointed that my garden is taking so long to produce (I didn’t plant until we returned from a trip just after July 4^th ), and because we are going on vacation this coming Saturday for 2 weeks, most of the veggies may go to waste unless I can figure out what else to do with them. I have made a vow for next year, though. I want to plant a few varieties of heirloom tomatoes and I will have them in the ground just after Memorial Day. Summer is way too short to wait until the end of August for fresh tomatoes (and other such goodies)!

Uh, would someone please remind me of this next May???