Garden goodness

Behold! The latest bounty from my garden. I just love this time of year!
I'm getting a huge amount of pear and cherry tomatoes, but only one beefsteak has ripened so far. Isn't it a beauty though? And boy are they good! I had my first BLT of the season for dinner Sunday night. The beefsteak was so large that one slice covered my bread entirely! I would have liked to use home grown lettuce, but I had to pull it out last weekend that because I had not tended it often enough and it bolted. Isn't that a funny term?
The yellow squash are patti-pan aka flying saucer squash. I didn't grow those, I got them at a farmer's market table in Rockford. I usually grow them, but nobody had plants of either those or Eight Ball zucchini this year. Both are fabulous on the grill!
The blackberries are the only ones I'll get this year. Apparently the kind of plant I have is a bi-annual and I cut down the canes from last year that would have produced berries this year. Bummer.
I've been bringing cucumber, cream cheese and dill sandwiches to work every day for lunch. They are sooo refreshing!
I'm going to try to replant the lettuce and my edamame plants to see if I can get a fall crop. If the weather holds out, I should get some more. This is the first time I've grown edamame. They were doing really well until those evil Japanese beetles ate their leaves to with in an inch of their lives. The skeletal leaves on the plant to the left are my edamame plants. The one behind it is my Japanese Eggplant. It's a pretty white and purple color. This is the first year I've gotten eggplants to grow. I think it's because I tried a new kind this year. Typically I plant the traditional dark aubergine kind. I just love that word, aubergine. It ranks up there with my all time favorite word; autumnal.
I'm hoping to get enough tomatoes to can this year, but they just aren't turning red. They did this last year too. I bought a canner last year from Farm and Fleet, but have yet to use it! I'm going to try to make some garlic pickles as well. I have yet to find a recipe for really garlicky pickles yet, so it's experiment time for me! Unless anyone out there has a good garlic pickle recipe, that it is.

Speaking of canning...DiscoJen, Jennie and I made peach jam a couple of weeks ago.

I got the peaches fresh from Georgia from the orange guy. Odd, huh? Getting peaches from the orange guy? The orange guy drives a truck up from the FL orange groves once a month during the winter, so every year at Christmas I have fresh squeezed orange juice! In the early summer he drives to Georgia and brings fresh peaches to the Midwest. Aren't the little fabric hats the cutest? I think they really add that little "something" to the jars, don't you?

I got to work from home a couple of days this week. What's the best part about being allowed to work from home, other than no aggravating commute and saving gas? This is!
There's nothing better than having your dogs at work with you! That's my desk chair on the right. This is in my very girly guest room dibbed "the purple and green room." Very original, don't you think? I'm very lucky to have a fabulous boss that I enjoy working for, and not just because she lets me work from home sometimes!