Summer Abundance

After returning from our Utah trip, I spent the morning out walking and weeding in the garden, indulging the agrarian side of my nature.....
The grapes seem to be keeping ahead of the deer this year! Maybe I'll be able to put up lots of juice -- Yahoo!
And the volunteer hollyhocks growing in the raspberry patch are looking pretty. In my book, if something has a flower on it, it's not considered a weed. :-)
Today's menu will come from the garden: stir fried garlicky eggplant for lunch and vegetable stir fry for dinner. I was thinking today, why do I like eggplant so much? I really don't know.....it's kind of weird.
Take a look at the branches of the plum tree! They are loaded and I plan to pick them a little under ripe this year so that I can get to them before the porcupines do.Now, after sharing all this garden loveliness, I need to post a disclaimer: I want you to know-- my gardens are weedy, the morning glory is growing like crazy, my beans hardly germinated this year, etc. etc. A friend of mine, from out of state, told me she never visits my blog because the garden pictures last summer made her too jealous. Aaack! That's certainly not my intention. So to keep it real around here, I'll share what my "other" garden looks like this year. You know, the one I grew pumpkins, squash, potatoes, artichokes, beans and corn in last year..... the one Joel rototilled twice for me this spring but then I never got around to planting anything in except gladiolus and asparagus....Please don't ask where the gladiolus are- I haven't a clue.