Tomatoes, Beans & Melons

The garden produced some of my favorite tomatoes, Cherokee Purple - the dark one in these photos. I've photographed it with a regular red tomato here to show the color difference. The taste difference is equally impressive.

Currant tomatoes, shown in Clare's 5-yr-old hands. Not quite as tiny as last year's "Spoon Tomato" - now those were ridiculously small.

We had a fair harvest of Eary Riser green beans. We did not get the rain we had last year, and I still haven't figured out just how often I need to water for optimum yields. Sure wish we had ditch access!




Prescott Fond Blanc. A rock melon. Sooo good! Firm, juicy sweet flesh.

Petit Gris de Rennes. This little melon was really tasty. I figure the size would make the shell a perfect bowl for an appetizer of cold melon soup. Unfortunately I planted them so late that this is the only one to ripen so far.

Balloon Glowdeo!

On Thursday, Clare & I took a bus to Balloon Fiesta for a Special Shapes Glowdeo.

This is one of the few "Glow" shots that came out. It's an elephant head named "Nellie B", with the Jack-o-Lantern glowing behind.

Can you tell what this one will be? It's the Energizer Bunny!

Clare enjoyed seeing the balloons getting ready to inflate. This one is a scarecrow.

As the sun went down, the balloons went up.

Here is "Pandy" the panda balloon, all flattened out, like roadkill?

I'd only seen Pumpkinhead from very far away, and I'd never realized that the eyes, nose & mouth are actually made to look "cut out". I always thought they were just surface decorations. I now have a much greater appreciation for this balloon.

One of the cool things about this outing was that Clare & I went without Steven. When Clare was smaller, I was reluctant to do anything this "big" without his assistance - involving travel that I wasn't totally in control of (we used Park & Ride), crowds, noise, etc. Clare, while still very intense in many ways, is getting a tiny bit easier. And Steven did not want to go. He *hates* crowds and would have been miserable. And Clare & I had so much fun!