I really enjoys all the smillies we can use here. I find that I miss not having them when I am on other sites.

I mulched with straw all around the pond area. Keeps out weeds!


view from the other direction

I sure can understand the mix up Rita. You have so many tomatoes and all getting ripe at once, it certainly would be hard to tell them apart.

I pick them in batches and I know what all the tomato plants are. For instance two rows in the old tomato garden. Early Girl in one row and whopper in the other side. Very easy to keep apart. But I mixed them up after I put them on my back stoop and then moved the piles around. I was really annoyed with myself too as I had wanted to do the taste tests!

Love your BOLD WITNESS and DREAM SEQUENCE -- and BOB MARLEY, of course!

Thanks!

Rita, the pond area looks very peaceful.

I really like the pond. It actually is a 350 gallon oval stocktank sunk in ground and then surrounded by rocks in order to try and make it look natural. I think it turned out pretty good. There is a frog moved in there this spring, some goldfish and I have some water hyacinths.

Actually I have three ponds. That is the big one. Then I also have two 35 gallon ones. The racoons really, really love the two 35 gallon ones as they often go wading in those at night.

Rita, do you have any special chemicals you have to put in the ponds to keep them clean or do the ponds have some type of filter?

I don't do anything to the small 35 gallon ones except clean them out in the spring. Add water if the rain doesn't keep them full. The small feeder goldfish do fine and would last till winter if the racoons did not get them. I usually have to replentish in the summer. The big pond has a pump and filter combo that I usually run. I had it out in the picture because I pulled it out to clean it.

Rita, I don't know how you do all that work. You are one busy lady.

I love my garden.

Couldn't be better said.

I am eating Early Girl fried green tomatoes right now! Mmmm Mmmm! They were very small so it took about ten for a nice sized serving for my husband and myself. May not be healthy, but this will be our supper(or as my daughter always corrects me, dinner) tonight. The red ones are very good too right off the vine.

I usually have some green tomato fall off the vine for some reason or another. Or I cut it off by mistake trying to get the red ones. Fried green tomatoes are just so good. I like to have them with steak or even a hamburger.

Vickie, that sounds so yummy! Save some for me, I will be right over.

Okay:) They might be a little soggy by the time you get here though!

I've never eaten fried green tomatoes! Can you believe it? My Mom always laughs that her Mom cooked them, even though no one liked them. Grandma just couldn't stand to let anything go to waste. If a green tomato fell off the plant, it got friend up and served for supper. So, how do you cook them?

That's cute, Natalie. It was considered a sin to waste anything back in the old days. I don't remember eating fried green tomatoes when I was young, but we absolutely had to eat the fat on the meat that was served. To this day, I will not eat fat on meat.

Fried green tomatoes is a delicacy for my husband and me and we can't wait until the season comes.

This is how I fix them, but I'm sure there are other ways. I usually slice about four medium green tomatoes, kind of thin so they don't soak up too much grease and they get a little crispier that way. I whisk one egg in a cereal bowl, add about 3/4 cup of milk, then dredge the sliced green tomatoes through cornmeal. Fry in hot oil for 1-2 minutes until brown on one side, flip to brown on the other side and then put them on a plate with some paper towels on it to soak up a little of the oil. Then I salt and pepper them and serve.

Some people salt and pepper before frying, some people don't like cornmeal and use flour instead, and some people like the thick sliced green tomatoes.