My garden is doing very well right now.

I get enough greens for a big cooking project once a week or two from the collard plants. I also give away some leaves if I'm lucky enough to find someone that wants a serving.

     

I get a snack of raspberries every time I visit the garden. Sometimes it's one or two, sometimes it's several each for everybody I'm showing the garden to.

The mint and sage bushes are an attractive sight at the moment. The flame grape I planted a year ago gave its first harvest a week or two ago. It was about half a dozen strings of yummy grapes. Most of them got eaten by Danica and Dora when they visited for the first time this summer.

The second time they visited we dug out the grape vine that hasn't been doing very well. That is to say Dora and I dug it out. Danica sorted the fava beans from the shells and stems. I hope to have her plant them after we harvest whatever I plant for a fall crop.

I'm seeing lots of tomatoes, but I'm only ripening enough to harvest one or two a day. Still that works out to lots of yummy bowls of tomato soup every week. Lots of delicious tomatoes in sandwiches and on crackers with cheese. I've not bought tomatoes to eat at home since July started. I love being that self sufficient in tomatoes.

  

Also, the chard plants are giving me enough greens that I've quit buying those. I've not bought greens in many months.

  

It's rare to have any rain in August around here, but that storm chased me out of the garden. You can see it in the splotches on the sidewalk. Looking out I could see sheets of drops falling, but the camera didn't capture that.

Yumm! This is my typical lunch nowadays. Two and a half ounces of pasta. At least five ounces of chopped chard stems. At least one big tomato. A teaspoon of chicken bullion or something like that. After it cooks a bit I add all the leafy greens that came with the chard stems and spices to taste. Cook until the pasta is almost done. After I took this picture and sipped it down a bit I added beans as a cooling/thickening agent and some sesame seeds. When I time it right the stems come out mildly chewy, kind of like meat. A chunk of chocolate for desert. It's the kind of food I eat day in and day out nowadays.