Eggplants and other produce

Today we are going to pick and cook our first eggplants of the summer. We have plenty of tomatoes and even a zucchini to cook them with. And I'm going to make ricotta cheese, thanks to a recipe by David Lebovitz, published by Elise on Simply Recipes. All that should make a good gratin or casserole.

A long purple aubergine, splashed with muddy water

We planted a mixed packet of eggplant (aubergine) seeds in the spring, starting them in little pots. They all — about 20 of them — came up and have now started producing fruit. All the fruit looks the same except on one plant. The eggplants are long and purple, but that different plant is covered with little (for the moment) round, white eggplants, with just a slight purple tint on them.

The fruit of the eggplant

Our summertime routine has kicked in now. We don't have any visitors on the schedule until September. The regular routine means walking the dog twice a day, doing laundry, picking vegetables from the garden, and cooking and eating them. Taking a lot of pictures is always part of my daily routine. Walt is sawing wood for the winter. He cuts the grass whenever it needs it. I do a lot of cooking.

Tomatoes ready for the picking

Yesterday I again spent a few hours in the garden weeding — it seems impossible to keep up with the weeds. I watered everything thoroughly and that made it easier to pull the weeds out of the soil. I'm trying to make sure the corn, rhubarb, and collard greens are getting enough water. Then I spent a good hour just tying tomato plants and vines up to their stakes and poles, to try to get as many tomatoes as possible up off the ground. If the weather turns damp, tomatoes touching the ground will rot.

Tomatoes and a stray black-eyed Susan

It's a lot of dirty work, but I'm sure we will be glad we did it all when winter comes and we start enjoying the produce we will have processed. Not that we are not enjoying it now too. As I said yesterday, you can tell that the season is changing again, and that makes you want to get ready. Pretty soon it will be two months since the summer solstice.

I thought the corn had worms but they turned out
to be little pieces of the corn tassels stuck to the leaves.
(Click the pictures with your mouse to enlarge them.)

After all the watering and weeding I did yesterday, we of course had a couple of good rain showers late yesterday afternoon. The rain poured down for an hour or so in all, but the sun kept shining. It was warm and pleasant out on the front terrace.

Meanwhile, here's what the wine grapes are doing out in the vineyard.

All this is probably a little monotonous and boring, but that too is life in Saint-Aignan. It's not nearly as monotonous as it will be in November, December, and January, however. So we are trying to enjoy it to the maximum. Spending time outside is part of that enjoyment, even if it means doing manual labor and getting dirty.