Settling into Fall

Today's harvest: basil, bush beans, and cherry tomatoes

The garden is winding down, and Fall is here! (If the garden never ramped up, can it wind down?) I harvested every bit of our basil from the 2 surviving plants (I started with about 20, and only 2 survived our soggy spring.) I left dormant leaf buds behind, so we'll see if they can muster up the energy to send out a bit of new growth before I clear the garden out entirely. Our yellow plum tomatoes and sweet 100 cherry tomatoes have been good producers this year, I'm glad I planted cherry tomatoes. The beans and basil joined with our harvest of purple potatoes to become a favorite Martha dish- potatoes and green beans pesto pasta. I know, it sounds ridiculous on paper, but you throw the potatoes into a huge pot of salted water and bring them to a boil, then add in the pasta, and throw in the green beans for the last few minutes of cooking. Save a bit of pasta water to mix in when you stir the pesto in, and the whole thing is creamy and herby and a fantastic mix of textures! I'm sad this might be the only time we eat it this year, but we've been saving our potatoes for the basil and beans harvest day, and weren't disappointed. (Well, Mimi was. She looked at me in shock saying "Ewwwwey Mommy! Ewwwwey!" Fine.) I had enough pesto to put some in the freezer, so we have that to look forward to this winter!

WIP...

I discovered a stash of Christmas presents I started last year, but ran out of time to finish, so I have my fingers crossed I won't run out of steam on these this year! Just a little teaser above....

Ernie was pretty excited to see my needles and threads out, and asked permission to start her own project. This one's a secret too, but I'll share it soon enough!

Mimi's project...seemed to be eating as much as possible, as often as possible. She's really good at it.

**Just an aside, but am I the only one who sees girls out for walks with their dogs, CARRYING their toy-sized pooches? I think I've made up my mind that if we ever get a dog, it's going to be a Dog. Black lab...golden lab...you know, a dog-sized dog. I saw a woman carrying her dog down the street today, and realized that our neighbor's huge black dog was attached to that poor girl nose to knee, shadowing her down the street, so she was carrying her mid-sized dog trying to keep it safe. The black dog is harmless, so the owners claim loudly and proudly, but it's almost never supervised and really scares walkers. I got out on the porch to try and get him to go home, and in the process got some scared looks from that girl...she thought he was mine!