In her poem Sometimes, Mary Oliver writes…

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

People who grow generally do all three without thinking. The zebrange peppers above triggered a modest competition. At left are Marc and Trev’s giants, ours late to color at right.

But here’s a fiery red zebrange from our late September pick. And below…Trev finds a potential cross in his garden, a yellow and brown Zebrange. He might save seeds and try to grow it out next season.

We asked the crew how 2026 unfolded for them. Marc said: Challenging comes to mind. Rodents, birds, rain, and heat were all seemingly more difficult this year.

And yet his Spanish mammoth peppers look robust.

Trevor responded: Besides the tough weather I’d say year of the sparrow. Eating the peas, the young cukes, the Eva Snader lettuce, nipping off young pepper plants—just a complete nuisance.

Banner year for the eggplants though. They didn’t seemed fazed by the weather or sparrows one bit.

Marc: Oh yeah, the sparrows crushed the cucumber blossoms for us over here too. Was grateful to get three decent Indian snake cukes and the pickles were excellent, but still would have loved more.

So say we all. I told the guys they’d never catch me complaining (ha), but our tomato season this year was cut dramatically short by heavy heavy rains, a hallmark of climate change. (Marc’s ode to the Berkeley tie dye tomato above.)

Chris agreed: for tomatoes, worst year ever (despite his lovely pick below). After the big rains, all of the semi-ripe tomatoes split, and the plants stopped producing. But my neighbor down the street had a fantastic year.

For those of us who have what Michael Pollan calls an active relationship with nature, all that rain affects how much food we produce. We had similar results, the heavy rains shutting down tomato production in mid-September, though a glance through our pix show some delicious and copious early harvests.

“Tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming.” David Bowie

Chris adds: We did have many sightings of the Carolina mantis though.  And plenty of toads.

Robin Wall Kimmerer calls hands in the soil “participating in the economy of the land.” I like that. And I like my wee beets below because they show I tried.

In our patch, the bees come out first when I hang a full hummingbird feeder, quick to sip from the slightly overflowing beak holes.

Here’s a pretty pepper pick from Trev…

And an early September harvest.

Sarah Kendzior says, and rightly: AI is the technofascist replacement for life, stripped of the qualities that make it worth living: love, imagination, curiosity, the natural world.

Over here, fat and happy Craig’s jalapeno.

Marc was loving all the colors of his stand-up gardens, and so do we.

Sugar rush pepper bonanza at Trevor’s.

Hababon peach in our garden.

Cristal

Garden still life at Marc’s.

Zapotec jalapeno (extra fiery)

A single tablespoon of living soil can contain billions of microorganisms, including bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes. Get your hands into it and see what happens.

Cajohn serrano

Over at Marc’s, white egg eggplant.

Trev grew some too. Aren’t they lovely?

Guayana lemon pepper

Maya habanero, a new favorite in our garden, grows well in Trevor’s patch too.

Answering the most common question we get: What do you actually DO with all those peppers? Eat them, of course, or make hot pepper sauce.

The peachy-ripe melocoton pepper plant five feet tall and loaded.

Guadeloupe black pepper

Jimmy Nardello at Marc’s. This is a beautiful frying pepper.

Marc’s Aswad eggplant

Sugar rush orange pepper in our garden yesterday. The long tail on warmth this year—it’s been in the low 70sF for a few weeks—made our peppers very happy.

Cibola, with its pretty purple foliage

Fish pepper, with distinctive variegated leaf

In early September, Brother Chris reported seven monarchs, a black swallow tail, and two hummingbirds on his Mexican sunflowers (tithonia). Here’s the vid:

We love those Mexican sunflowers as much for putting in vases as for attracting pollinators. Ours are still lighting up the fall garden today.

More insect sightings, this gorgeous specimen at Marc’s.

And a spider friend in our greenhouse, happily sucking the life out of its prey.

I want back into the zebrange competition with these from yesterday…

Let’s close with words from the Great Buddha: “Your death will come on an ordinary day, in the middle of unfinished plans. The world will continue without you. So live fully.”

Cheers to that!

Chiltepin peppers, small but mighty heat

Tomatoes of all shapes and sizes now arriving daily. Over at Brother Chris’s, a burgeoning basket of homegrown flavor.

We might try this recipe for rice-stuffed tomatoes with some of our larger specimens. Who else is harvesting? Trevor picked a peck of cukes and started fermenting.

And out of his modest city garden, Marc is plucking a range of colorful delicacies, including three types of heirloom eggplant, below: aswad, melanzana rossa di rotonda, and rosita. Look at those colors.

Marc calls the concoction below his Strictly Backyard Sizzler, created with what he and his neighbors are growing.

As we see more food-borne pathogen outbreaks (most recently on jalapenos), think about growing a bit of something yourself. It’s remarkable how little space you need for a tomato plant (a friend grows cherry tomatoes in large pots), some lettuce or arugula, a basil plant, or really any of the summer players here.

Espelette pepper in the city…

The Berkeley tie-dye tomatoes here are coming in large and luminous. We only started growing these a couple years ago and are unlikely to stop.

Summer in a picture (pre-basil).

Serrano tampiqueno, fat and fiery.

Padron, prompting us to wonder how we’ll prepare them. Here’s one idea—how we usually prepare shishito peppers. One in ten is spicy, according to him. We know folks who wouldn’t take that bet!

Via Row 7, the Midnight Roma tomato cluster ripens with a blush of extra phytonutrients.

"...the history preserved undaunted in seeds is a small reminder of how the good world persists, fearless in resistance and adaptation, always holding to what is true."--Frank Morton

Chris was wondering why his oxheart tomatoes weren’t turning red. Here’s why.

The oxhearts are super sweet. Another variety I’ve only grown in recent years.

In the stand-up garden, the Goodie tomatoes are a bright happy red.

Yesterday’s harvest. Who took a bite out of that oxheart?

I’m convinced the dreadful particulates from the Canadian wildfires have slowed the progress of our peppers, but check in with us in a week or so. Trevor should have an update then too.

*Headline text via this Auden poem.

flowers in the trellis cage

For years I’ve tried to grow cukes, squash, and beans in our large garden, but the tasty starts and young fruits were immediately consumed by hungry critters. Flowers too!

Now it’s smiling me nibbling a fully grown fruit, in this case an Early Fortune Cucumber, “perfect for slicing or pickling.” Or just eating out of hand.

This year we expanded the driveway garden, loaded it up with fresh dead wood and compost, and caged the whole endeavor with trellises I can lift out individually.

Now there are multiple cukes on the way, plus summer and winter squash and beans. Have the critters been defeated? Please let’s not tempt fate.

With yesterday’s pick, I’m announcing the start of tomato season.

This plump Moyamensing is named for a prison. Read about the history of this seed here.

How Does the Brain Turn Waves of Light Into Experiences of Color?“Many of us take for granted the rich colors we see every day – the red of a ripe strawberry or the deep brown in a child’s eyes. But those colors do not exist outside of our brains,” said Rudy Behnia, PhD, a principal investigator at Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute... Rather, she explained, colors are perceptions the brain constructs as it makes sense of the longer and shorter wavelengths of light detected by the eyes.

Our first poppy sprang from seed gifted by Brother Chris that I tossed into the big garden and forgot about. Below, in his garden, the iconic poppy seed heads are just as compelling as the blooms, albeit in a less colorful way.

Speaking of Chris, he had his earliest large tomato with this slightly deformed Berkeley Pink Tie Dye June 20. The plant had a wee tomato developing back when he got it in our spring plant share.

Look what Hudson Valley Seed Company says about this one: In our 2022 farm trials, this beefsteak was the hands-down favorite. The flavor is deliciously complex: rich, tangy, with a savory umami base, and the texture is both meaty and juicy.

Also showing color in the Chris-Trev garden is this Black Russian—not summer sweet, they say, but excellent flavor for another early pick.

This week a heat dome—with temps close to 100F and unspeakably high humidity—should move the tomatoes toward ripening. Here’s Goldie, also planted with a couple tiny tomatoes on the plant, now showing its colors.

More in keeping with most of our (green) tomatoes, Marc’s already anticipating his Prairie Fire harvest. The uniquely shaped fruit is unmissable in the garden and its high-sugar flavor—”insanely sweet fruit with a brix reading of 10.0”—makes snacking a requirement.

What’s happening in Pepperland? Over at Marc’s, the Spanish Mammoth is coming on strong

And everyone’s favorite Sarit Gat is already two feet tall and turning yellow.

Here’s a Petit Marsellais we found hiding in the green. From the link: The flavor is extraordinary and deeper than purely sweet, reminding us of a rich, citrusy chili whose heat you keep waiting for but never arrives. In Provence, they are picked green and sautéed whole in olive oil stuffed with eggs, garlic, gruyere, parsley, salt, and pepper.

And our first Bonda ma Jacques, which hails from the Caribbean.

Trevor gifted us with pepper plants grown from seed with fascinating history. Here’s another French variety, Piment de Bresse, “a rare chili pepper grown in the Bresse region in France…The peppers are used traditionally in powder form and incorporated into a cheese called fromage fort. It is an ancient heirloom that has been used for hundreds of years.”

Trevor wrote today with a conundrum: I’ve got two padron pepper plants and one looks like a proper Padron but the second one is a complete toss up. Had them next to cayennes last year so maybe some cross pollination? But these look nothing like my other cayennes in the garden. These are twice the size and producing like crazy. Have yet to turn ripe yet though. We’ll see what color they end up being.

We’ll keep you updated.

Not colorful but eminently edible, delighted to see the shiso re-seeding itself. Maybe we’ll try the Shiso-Infused Gin Cocktail when friends visit next week. Stay cool…

A squash blossom announcing itself on a late spring morning.

Marc’s first tomato—Sweet Prince—with attention paid to equitable sampling.

When a structure gives up but continues to be worthy.

Trevor’s first pepper, a Maya habanero.

A BLT made with cherry tomatoes from the farmers market (because sometimes you can’t wait).

Caged flowers with vegetables and herbs, safe from hungry deer.

Our own first tomatoes—stupice—in mid-June.

Inordinate excitement over the intelligence of a fetal cucumber, in the caged garden.

The blue of a borage flower.

Reading.

From the moment we start seeds early in the new year we’re eager to share the results. A month ago we met to do just that (and then I planted for weeks and hence this tardy post).

Happy shouts as people comb through crowded tables: “Anyone seen a Black Russian?” and “where did you put the Cap 455s?” As always, Trev brings the peppers—30 varieties this year!

Part of the excitement is discovering what, for example, SRP on a label means—sugar rush peach in this case.

We like to grow uncommon varieties—that is, open pollinated and often very old types of tomato, eggplant, and pepper from all over the world. There were many tomato types on offer.

It was a big day, since the morels also popped up to be discovered.

Was there food? Of course there was food.

With temperatures swinging wildly from the 80sF to the 30sF over these four weeks, we had to bring some plants back inside to prevent freezing, but on April 30 I just started planting.

Solid root development on the peppers, beyond happy to get into the earth.

Here’s the master pepper list, with more to come as the season progresses:

Pepper name followed by Scoville Heat Units (SHU) followed by color and then country of origin if Trev could find it.

C. ANNUUM
Ms. Junie (Hatch) SHU 5,000-10,000 Green/Red Hatch, NM
NuMex CaJohn Jumbo Serrano SHU 10,000 Green NM
Serrano Tampiqueno SHU 10,000-25,000 Green Pueblo, Mex
Jalapeno Zapotec SHU 5,000-10,000 Green/Red Corked Oaxaca, Mex
Jalapeno Craigs Grande SHU 5,000-8,000 Green USA
Cayenne Long Thin SHU 30,000-50,000 Red Mex?
Petit Marseillais SHU 0-500 Yellow Southern France
Doux D’Espagne (Spanish Mammoth) SHU 0 Red Spain
Piment D Espellette SHU 4,000 Red Espellette, France
Piment De Bresse (Lyon) SHU 10,000-60,000 Red Lyon, France
Cibola—below—(VSRP x Poblano)SHU 5,000-10,000 Orange/Purple

Palmetto Punch (Jalapeno x Ghost)SHU 100,00-200,000? Red
Padron SHU 500-2,500 Green Spain
Sarit Gat SHU 30,000-50,000 Yellow Kosovo

C. ANNUUM VAR. GLABRIUSCULUM (Wild)
Chiltepin SHU 50,000-100,000 Red US/Mex Boarder

C. BACCATUM
Sugar Drop Orange SHU 20,000-40,000 Orange
Aji Cristal SHU 30,000-50,000 Yellow/Orange/Red
Cap 455 SHU 0 Red
Zebrange SHU 5,000-10,000 Red/Orange Stripe
Norteno SHU 2,000-5,000 Red Northern Peru
Sugar Rush Peach SHU 25,000-50,000 Peach
Aji Guyana Lemon SHU 5,000-15,000 Bright Yellow
Melocoton SHU 10,000-30,000 Peach Peru

C. CHINENSE
Guadalupe Black SHU 100,000-350,000 Brown Isla Guadalupe
Bahamian Goat SHU 100,000-300,000 Orange Bahamas
Bonda Ma Jaques SHU 200,000-450,000 Yellow French Antilles
Burkina Yellow SHU 150,000-350,000 Yellow Burkina Faso Africa
Hababon Peach (Habanero x Scotch Bonnet?) SHU 100,000-350,000 Peach
Chocolate Fatalli 100,000-300,000 Brown Africa
Cajamarca SHU 20,000-50,000 Green to Purple to Yellow to Orange to Red Peru

Good news: the ramps are up and should be easy pulling after this week’s warm rains.

Over-wintering in the big garden, some kind of brassica with a tasty morsel ready for our salad.

Meanwhile, Art is squaring up the driveway garden, our first hugelkultur effort seven years ago. Here’s a pic of the original, which we expanded year by year

The edging of big logs is slowly composting away, which is its job but also makes for an untidy border. We’ll add more dead wood and top it off with compost.

Indoors, plants started from seed have surged on the light rack and now we’re transplanting into larger pots. Below, tomato and basil—true friends—are ready for that.

Spring has been predictably capricious, moving from blizzard to 70F in a matter of days and sending us outside to pot up before moving plants quickly back indoors.

I’m always weak for basil varieties and this year seem to have several globe types coming up indoors.

All herbs are precious additions to meals and we’re eager to try these.

“Full of sunflower surprises.” Until next time…

This is one hefty fruit, and they call it a paste tomato, but that seems to narrow its use to sauces. We liked it for slicing fresh, and we’ll be getting some new seed for 2026. Johnny’s describes it nicely:

This "sausage" type paste tomato produces large, 8–10 oz., elongated fruits that are easy to process into sauce. An excellent canning tomato, it also tastes great when eaten fresh. Attractive green shoulders give a distinct heirloom look. Fruits ripen during a concentrated period, allowing for a more efficient canning process. It is well-adapted to northern climates, and resists disease and blossom end rot better than others of its type. This strain of Blue Beech was originally brought to Vermont from Italy during WWII.

Just delivered from Row 7, some updated seeds for old favorites:

Here’s Sweet Prince on a loaded vine. I love this tomato.

Berkley Pink Tie Dye, beautifully inscribed. Need to check how recent our seed is. Last spring we had some non starters in all categories. I tend to save seeds from year to year because they seem to germinate well. But…ten years might be pushing it.

Pink Ping Pong, you are a ping pong ball-sized gem among tomatoes, appearing just in time after it warms up and lasting late into autumn.

It’s 12F outside this morning, but never too early to review our collection of cool-weather spring greens. I just ordered lots more from Wild Garden Seed, a favorite purveyor.

Greens, glorious greens…

How can it be mid-January? Time to start onion seed, a first for us this year, and other goodies coming from Hudson Valley Seed Company in New York State. Oddly, if you draw a map from HVSC to Wild Garden Seed in the Willamette Valley of Oregon you drive past the southern tip of Lake Michigan and our region. Could be this latitude suits us.

We had a plethora of tree frogs last summer, sweet little green beings who came to visit up on the deck. One of them even traveled into the kitchen undetected on the bread plate.

Trevor started a remarkable 22 pepper varieties from seed last winter, among them the captivating Zebrange, above, shining like a streetlamp through the garden green. For sheer shape and variegated color, Zebrange is one sexy pepper.

The Pepper Project wasn’t exactly a project, but it sure was fun. Trev, Marc, and I grew out the pepper starts over a very hot summer and a couple hundred miles. As always, the differing micro-climates delivered a bounty there we did not see here and vice versa.

Now here’s Puma, a top contender for favorite this season. Its compact yet elegant growth habit makes it perfect for the stand-up garden.

And a lovely color range—from green/purple to gold.

Click through for many pictures of this shapeshifter. Here’s a Trevor garden harvest virtually glowing with the heat of an habanero, but with a flavor all its own.

In the goofy category, this pepper looks a little like string beans…

…but after it ripens more like deformed tootsie rolls. This is thunder cacho brown, described at the link as having a “mild heat level and fruity smoky flavor tones.”

Here’s Marc’s favorite of the season: the bold, flavorful sarit gat, an excellent all-around pepper with nice mid-range heat that we loved using as they matured. Below, a beautiful plant flows over the edge of Marc’s stand-up garden box.

Oahu sweet hots.

Almost forgot about shipka…

Trev had his earliest first pepper harvest ever on June 23. Top to bottom Tibet Lhasa, Rezha Macedonia, Bulgarian shipka, orange banana, and one Hawaiian sweet hot.

Worth noting that most of these peppers are hot (to extremely hot), but if you cut away the ribs and seeds they deliver unexpected subtlety. Here’s Sarit gat in our in-ground garden.

The Peruvian Aji Colorado went crazy here with shrublike growth and a shower of fruit, but first a photo of Marc’s aji Colorado mid-season in a stand-up garden box.

And here at full maturity in our garden.

For the record, let’s paste in Trev’s master list of peppers:

Separated by species, then scoville rating, color, country of origin and where I got the seeds. For reference, Jalapenos have a scoville of 3,000-8,000 and serranos are 10,000- 25,000.

Capsicum Annum
- Puma Pepper 300,000-400,000 SHU Yellow/Purple, Italy?, Baker Creek
- Rezha Macedonian 1,000-8,000 SHU Corked Red, Macedonia, Baker Creek
- Lhasa 23,000 SHU Red, Tibet, Renees Garden
- Thunder Cacho Brown 20,000-50,000 SHU Brown, Denmark, Semillas 2.0
- Padron 500-2,500 SHU Green, Spain, Semillas 2.0
- Monkey Face Yellow 3,500-10,000 SHU Yellow, Sweden, Matts Peppers
- Banana Orange Sweet 0 SHU Orange, Hungary, Matts Peppers
- Oahu Sweet Hots 1,000-5,000 SHU Red, Hawaii, Matts Peppers
- Raffaello 30,000-50,000 SHU Red Corked, USA, Matts Peppers
- Sarit Gat 30,000-50,000 SHU Yellow, Kosovo, White Hot Peppers

Capsicum Baccatum
- Aji Guyana Red 5,000-15,000 SHU Red, Guyana, Matts Peppers
- Zebrange 5,000-10,000 SHU Orange Stripes, Belgium, Semillas 2.0
- Aji Norteno 1,000-50,000? Red, Peru, Semillas 2.0
- Queen Laurie 20,000-60,000 SHU Orange, Peru, Semillas 2.0
- Aji melocoton 10,000-30,000 SHU Peach, Peru, White Hot Peppers
- Brazilian Starfish Orange 10,000-30,000 SHU Orange, Brazil, White Hot Peppers
- Aji Colorado 20,000-30,000 SHU Red, Bolivia, Semillas 2.0

Capsicum Chinense
- Khang Starr Lemon Starrburst 200,000 SHU Yellow, USA, Semillas 2.0
- Aji Margariteno 500-2,000 SHU Yellow, Venezuela, White Hot Peppers
- Zou Pi 5,000-10,000 SHU Red, China, White Hot Peppers
- Brown Egg 10,000-25,000 SHU Brown, Unknown, White Hot Peppers
- Aji Dulce 1,000-5,000 SHU Red, Brazil, White Hot Peppers

Below, aji norteno, another Peruvian variety.

How about this sweet little Brazilian starfish?

Clockwise, starting with gold-purple puma, are the Trev-grown khang starr lemon starburst, aji margariteno, pink crab, and Cheiro Roxa, the last of which are called purple perfume at the link and that tells the whole story. Trev brought me some of these and the nose on them is deeply floral and just wonderful.

Here’s monkeyface, looking a bit like an arrowhead.

The corky Rezha and chimayo del Norte, which Trevor grilled mid summer.

Hello Melocoton, the pepper that starts out pale and ripens to wrinkly, peachy perfection. We harvested these last week, another season’s favorite here.

Growing peppers is kind of like growing flowers. Look at the color, form, variety. And yes we put them in bowls to enjoy visually. A summer Trevor pick below.

Here’s Queen Laurie, a now five-foot tall plant that was eaten in half by the undergrounders early in summer. She won’t produce much but was still setting flowers last week.

What are we doing with all these pepper? We enjoy several daily in our food. Below, Trev pickled some. And made hot sauce.

Marc made a fun outdoor drying display:

Hidalgo serrano

Padron

Sweet banana orange

Maya habanero, with not enough growing season left to turn orange.

Look at Trev’s otherworldly Aji margariteno!

Zou pi. What’s not to love about these squinched lovelies?

Check out who’s drying peppers and saving seed (hint: Trev’s basement). And the beat goes on. We already can’t wait until next spring.

We’re doing a little of that too. Read more at Why Seeds Matter.

Hi summer toadie.

And suddenly: goodbye summer.

This year we built a few stand-up gardens and added them to the driveway area where we get variable sun throughout the growing season. Art added the upright extensions (recycled from an old futon frame) so I could wrap the planters in fine netting to keep nosy deer away.

Marc and family visited this spring and had an idea, which might be why we all like looking at gardens not our own. They went home and put together two planters, positioning them in a sun-rich area. Marc planted them densely and had a terrific harvest. Note the sarit gat yellow peppers cascading and the tomatoes setting up.

Here he takes us on a tour of one of his stand-up planters, which he calls planter boxes. Tomato/tomahto.

Since he mentioned changing a few things next spring, we asked him to talk more about that. He’s considering putting in smaller tomato varieties, because the growing medium isn’t deep enough to insert much support for the larger tomats (ours benefit from the deer netting, on which they can rest their gangly growth). Marc said they might also add a third planter and pondered whether this year’s scheme (three peppers in front, two tomatoes) was too dense.

Here’s an Aji Norteno, a Northern Peru variety, from his boxes. It’s a beauty.

Marc had a fantastic growing season both with planter boxes and in-ground garden.

This cuke—verified at 42 inches—came from his in-ground plantings. I might try cukes in my netted stand-ups next year, since the young plants have been eaten by critters the last two springs.

No matter how much growing space you have, the stand-up garden can house extras. We like to put herbs in ours that would otherwise be decimated by critters out in the in-ground growing areas. Also, these are close to our kitchen for easy picking.

To fill your box, get the best growing medium you can afford. We use the same principle to start ours as we do for our hugelculture/hill culture in-ground soil. First lay dried sticks on the bottom, followed by dead leaves, and then a series of larger dead wood to about two-thirds full, toppping the whole thing with something like my favorite compost-based potting mix. It’s expensive, but remember the growing medium will last from year to year as the wood and leaves break down into a beautiful, carbon-rich soil. You can top it up if needed.

Planting with the seasons: in early spring we plant seeds for arugula and lettuces and the planter boxes turn into a nice salad bar.

Here’s a shot of our young plants last spring, when all looks orderly and possible.

And here’s one of Marc’s garden box peppers—Aji Colorado—before ripening.

Go grow!

Before we get to recipes, check out the fancy variegation on this Berkely Pink Tie Dye tomato…

Fermented tomato salsa This recipe produces a salsa that will take you back to a Mexican beachside table. It’s a salsa with tang and bite just begging for a salty chip and a crisp marg.

I use the smaller tomats from our vines because their constellation of flavors creates a nice balance.

Initially I thought I’d need to cut them before they went in the food processor. Then I decided nah, and all other elements went into the processor too. The recipe makes it easy to flex ingredients. We used green onion from our organic box and less garlic than some folks might.

We did remove the seeds and ribs from the Lhasa, sair gat, and Oahu peppers before processing, so this version isn’t as fiery as it might be.

Don’t worry about special equipment, but truly helpful are the weights that sit atop the finished salsa to keep the solids submerged during fermentation. Mine are already in place in this pic, so look for something like this. I throw a dishtowel over the open tops, set the jars aside in the kitchen, and wait for the magic to happen.

Click here for a video overview on fermenting vegetables.

Melon tepache Trevor made a classic pineapple tepache for Mother’s Day 2019 and we never looked back. It’s slightly fizzy because it’s fermented and uber refreshing (because it originates in Mexico?). Plus is has the good bacteria that makes your belly happy.

The basics are fruit, water, and sugar to feed the ferment that develops over a few days. Because we got some gorgeous muskmelon in our organic CSA box we made melon tepache. I sprinkled in some cinnamon after reading this recipe, but it’s optional.

This is the part where you skim off the white growth. All part of the science. Because we like to fiddle with instructions, we used a half cup of sugar instead of the whole cup called for.

Zucchini We prefer small zucchini for daily use, but if you’re going to turn any-sized fruit into baked goods we’re here for it. These Zuni Cafe Zucchini Pickles (click for recipe) taste greater than the sum of their parts. They’re not fermented and in fact they’re sweet, so if you’re fond of bread and butter pickles check them out.

I had some extra liquid and used the same treatment on these Melanzana rossa di Rotonda eggplant after mandolining them into thin discs.

Back to fermentation…here’s Trev’s pre-ferment sambal. His formula calls for 2.5% salt by weight of the peppers and he says he’ll probably add a little vinegar when it’s done fermenting to thin it out.

He used all the red peppers we’ve been growing out from his starts, and here’s his latest weekly pick. Marc and I are growing some of these same peppers and it’s interesting to see how our harvests compare, with great variation in sun, soil, and location. More on that next time.

Many of you have asked for more on how we're growing food here. We formerly grew on the roof of our place in Chicago with a like-minded group we called Green Roof Growers (more here). Advantages: absolutely full sun. Downsides, everything had to be hauled to the roof + no planting bed up there so we used a sub-irrigated buckets filled with a fertilized mix that wicked water. The results were pretty impressive. You can read more by looking around our previous site here.

Melons growing on our Chicago roof

After leaving Chicago we found this current property in SW Michigan. It sits on the St Joseph River and is densely treed. It wasn't long before my decades-long compulsion to grow food reappeared. Now I could get my hands into some real soil. I searched for sun.

Original hugelkultur beds

In May 2018 we created our first hugelkultur (more below) bed, along the driveway where the sun got through a big hole in the trees. 

My goal was to build it mostly from materials I could find on the property. The bed started with a large piece of cardboard laid over grass and for the edging some logs swiped from Art's log pile, where he was splitting firewood.

We assembled that greenhouse together from a kit. At the end I decided the box should be labeled "Relationship Test."

Hugelkultur

Click here for more on the concept:

Hugelkultur (roughly translated from the German as "hill culture") is nothing more than making raised garden beds filled with rotten wood. This makes for raised garden beds loaded with organic material, nutrients, air pockets for the roots of what you plant, etc. 

As the years pass, the deep soil of your raised garden bed becomes incredibly rich and loaded with soil life. As the wood shrinks, it makes more tiny air pockets - so your hugelkultur becomes sort of self tilling. The first few years, the composting process will slightly warm your soil giving you a slightly longer growing season. 

The woody matter helps to keep nutrient excess from passing into the ground water-- and then re-feeding that to your garden plants later. Plus, by holding so much water, hugelkultur cuts down on watering.

I started small but soon added huge logs to the bottom of this bed

We topped the buried wood with cow manure, mushroom compost, and some organic soil so I could plant ASAP.

It didn't take long that first year for the plants to thrive.

So of course I built a second bed near the first one in the same sun

 2019 Spirit Circle hugelkultur bed

In the carefree, pre-pandemic days of October 2019 (just last year, though it seems like a lifetime ago) we started building the larger Spirit Circle hugelkultur bed down toward the river where there was more sun. 

Since I'd made the other growing areas with on-site materials I decided to use the same technique and spent the mostly-mild winter hauling rotting wood and filling the circle with enormous dead logs and any plant detritus (leaves, sticks, brush) I could find. 

Upside: No gym membership required for this full-body workout.

My supply of edging logs was looking bleak, though. Plus I wanted this bed to be higher/deeper.

We used what we could find for edging and by March 2020 (when there was no way we were going out during the plague to get soil amendments like manure and mushroom compost), I discovered South Bend has an extraordinary compost program. They take tree and garden waste and grind it, pile it in rows so it heats to kill any weed seeds, and then put it through a screen.

Remarkably, it's free to take as long as you load your own truck. Or in this case (since my body was strong but wrecked from building this bed) our helpers got it for us and put it on top of the now leaf-laden Spirit Circle.

Art brought more "finish" logs he found on the side of the road so I could make the edges higher.

By April, 2020, the cool-weather arugula I'd planted was happily coming up. I used some cardboard box leftovers as a path until I could figure out how I would gain access to this planting area.

Meantime, I'd started seeds--lot of seeds--that were maturing under a rigged-up grow light system that Art helped me set up from Home Depot online.

Back in the original beds, the spring greens were coming on strong

Happy tomatoes

Soon it was time to move all the plantlings out into the sun. I had started all the veggie seeds I had left over from 2009 and (surprise) they all germinated just fine. This is a lot of tomato plants. 

Meantime, I met Les, a nice neighbor who uses his saw to create wood sculpture. He works for the electric company taking down overgrown trees and removing ancient cedar poles that are unsteady. He agreed to slice up a cedar pole for me to create stepping disks so I could make my way into the garden.

He delivered a beautiful set (note: these smell like heaven)

I was beyond happy to be done with the build

The discs allowed access into the interior so I could start planting

Everything grew like crazy in this bio-diverse soil, rotting wood contributing all kinds of good things to the plants up top. Plus many nooks and crannies underground provide what I can only imagine is a funhouse for the moles and voles. I forked on leaf mold by the wheelbarrow-full to preserve moisture.

NB: If you want a cleaner look, you can start with a wood or metal surround and fill it using the same hugelkultur technique. 

July 2020

You've seen photos of the glorious vegetables thriving in the diverse hugelkultur environment. I am a convert, period. Here are a few more pictures from this morning.

Winter squash in the original bed

These are the two original beds and a plant table Art picked up for cheap at Lowe's. Plus a beautiful grate Wayne wanted to get rid of that makes an ideal climbing structure for the squash. The tower at left I found in a pile of junk on a nearby property.

Cherry tomatoes in the original beds

Plant friends in the Spirit Circle

Remember the hardware store trellis shortage? I'm using them to extend the outer edges for cukes and squash to grow on.

It's a joy to visit this 
riot of growth every day

And we are eating well

But wait. Not all those plant starts fit into the hugelkultur beds. So with the help of Art and Matt we built another (much) larger bed, filled it with wood chips and rotting wood just like the others, and now I’m certifiably a crazed grower rich with produce. Have there been hiccups? Oh yes, but that’s for another time.

We find new, open-pollinated varieties to grow each year, like these Blue Beech tomatoes, which seem to be growing into happy monsters.

Our garden grows well, but I wonder how much sun has been blocked by the smoky haze this year. All while your government proposes to repeal clean-air rules.

Here the happy, ornament-like eggplant Melanzana rossa di Rotonda are coming in like crazy.

They look shallacked, right off the vine. We’re in tomato heaven, with lots of medium tomatoes and larger ones ripening quickly. We make fresh tomato sauce with the smaller tomatoes and also marinate them and toss into lettuce salads.

West of Chicago, brother Chris is picking his first basket of the big tomats he loves. Look at these beauties.

Trevor’s pepper bowl has reached full-color constellation stage. He started a staggering 22 varieties from seed and shared the plants with us all.

Notable in the bowl is the squinched Zou Pi, from China…

Meanwhile, some little friends in Chicago have grown a monster cuke, the Indian Snake.

Here’s the seed packet photo. Hey kiddos: where are your caftans?

Elsewhere, Marc is harvesting the beloved yellow sarit gat pepper as quickly as he can eat them.

And check the gloss on his Aswad eggplant…

Closer to home, neighbor Shawn’s harvest basket is testament to her success with her very first garden, all grown from seed. So nicely done!

Time for one more? Flaming gems from Trev’s pleant gifts and our garden: peppers Padron, Oahu sweet, and Lhasa.

I learned a lot about these lovelies at the linked text below…

Kamo eggplants are also known as Kamo Nasu and are named after a region and river in Kyoto, Japan. The cultivar is considered a traditional vegetable of Kyoto and is revered for its smooth texture and rich flavor. In 1989, a group of over twenty Kamo eggplant farmers established the Kamigamo Heirloom Vegetable Research Organization to protect the image and quality of Kyoto-grown Kamo eggplants.

The organization created localized branding to differentiate the eggplants, and in the modern-day, Kamo eggplants cultivated in Kyoto are some of the most expensive eggplants grown in Japan. Growers only release Kamo eggplants that are regarded as perfect, lacking any imperfections, and typically the eggplants sell out within hours of being released to commercial markets.

Look at those colors…and welcome imperfections.

Kamo eggplants are a kyo-yasai vegetable, a traditional and highly valued vegetable of Kyoto, Japan. There are forty-one varieties of kyo-yasai, and all are protected by law and have been grown in Kyoto since at least the Meiji Era or earlier. The Kyoto Prefectural government established kyo-yasai vegetables after World War II when foreign vegetable imports were causing heirloom varieties to become extinct. The variety was believed to have been created sometime in the 1600s, and one of the first written records described a large and round eggplant in the Zhangzhou Capital book in 1684.

The interior is smooth and sweet, with minimal seeds.

In Kyoto, Kamo eggplants are also honored at the Kamo Eggplant Harvest Prayer Festival at the Kamigamo Shrine. During the festival, Kamo eggplants are dedicated at the temple, and a ceremony is held to bless the planting and harvest of the eggplant.

Trevor grew these portrait-worthy eggplants from our seed starts. Maybe we should hold a ceremony to bless our own planting and harvesting.

Clearly we’re drawn to seeds that have history, that tell a story. In the picture above, Kamo is at 6 o’clock and then clockwise…

Melanzana Rossa di Rotonda The Italian Rotonda eggplant arrived by the end of the nineteenth century, probably from Africa, maybe imported by some soldiers coming back from colonial wars. Unknown elsewhere, it is a rustic plant cultivated in every Rotonda garden and it has a more bitter and exotic taste compared to normal eggplants.

Aswad is an Iraqi heirloom variety native to the land of ancient Mesopotamia and modern-day Iraq. Aswad, the Arabic word for 'black', is a colloquial term for eggplant in Iraq. Aswad's drier fruit makes it especially suited for frying and baking in Iraqi dishes, but can be used like any Italian eggplant varieties. From the Aswad site this photo, which looks like fun but also a real mess?

Rosita (middle) This incredible heirloom was developed in Puerto Rico in the 1940s by the Puerto Rico Agricultural Experiment Station, Rio Piedras. One of our favorites every season.

Pingtung long A wonderful eggplant from Ping Tung, Taiwan. The purple fruit reach up to 14 inches long and 2 inches in diameter. This variety is so sweet and tender, superbly delicious! One of the best Chinese-type eggplants on the market.

Should I feel chagrined that I simply cut our Kamo into large dice and fried it in olive oil along with everything else from the morning’s garden pick? I don’t think so. Kamo plays well with vegetable friends. It cooks quickly and has a sweet delicious texture that calls for just a splash of fish sauce to accentuate.

Bows slightly in thanks…

More reason to celebrate: first sweet corn.

Did you ever wake up on a national holiday, remember the recently passed bill that cuts food assistance and health care to tens of millions of USians, pause to reflect on the depravity of the secret police and the Florida concentration camps, and feel a surge of patriotism?

Yeah me neither. So I made Richard Olney’s Gratineed Cauliflower.

Luscious from the oven, this preparation honored the subtle flavor of our CSA box cauliflower, which stayed green after a brief steaming. A reminder that eggs, heavy cream, Parmesan, and butter are forever friends.

This was after I picked the first padron peppers from the garden. Trevor visited Spain last year and told me the padrons there were often served like shishito—tossed in hot oil and salt until they blister.

I wasn’t sure about their heat, so I blackened them right up along with a handful of spring onion tips and took a bite and…oof. Next time we’ll de-seed and de-rib them to make room for their depth of flavor. Maybe even stuff them?

Padron on the vine. Grown from seed by Trev.

I bought a used library copy of this 1974 book a few years ago. Flipping open the first pages makes you chuckle right off because the original had a foreword by James Beard, which was superseded by Patricia Wells’ intro, which was then firsted by Mark Bittman. The greats lined up to claim their love for Olney’s masterpiece.

Maybe I’ll try other recipes this summer, with produce from our garden and the CSA.

If you’re feeling despondent about current events (and if you’re not, what is wrong with you?), eat well, share with your neighbor, and have a look at this piece about the joyful folks volunteering to keep US public lands tidy, safe, and accessible to all.

Mood…and also favorite vid of 2024. Click here to view…

First thing this morning I made (and devoured) chicken wings. Because there’s nothing else for it.

We’re posting garden-grown food for a happier scrolling experience, but first check out at this summer visitor: a stick insect that looks like a piece of jewelry…

It was 82F last week and then 32F and today it’s 72F. These temps are too hot for this time of year. And that’s the last I’ll say on the subject.

Bounty of August.

Pointy cabbage at the organic farm. Don’t ask me why I like them best. I just do.

Dwarf tomato in the stand-up grow box.

Nicotiana—flowering tobacco—grown from seed. The scent is seriously come-hither and lures in the pollinators.

In case of January emergency, open jar…

Anemone, so sculptural.

Often I think about this summer breakfast, with its ephemeral fresh watermelon, sweetcorn, tomatoes, and basil.

More nicotiana in the extended garden box.

Shishito peppers thrived this year.

Fake frog, real toad.

More summer in late September.

Anemone and friend.

Do you remember. The 21st night of September…

Malabar spinach setting seed.

The garden box project went well. We filled it with mostly pollinator plants that look messy now but should return with vigor next year.

October’s crayola colors.

October 9.

Oct 12.

Making ferment.

We got hibiscus at a local organic farm and made tea.

Hibiscus tea might be the prettiest tea.

Klip dagaa going to seed. Click here for more, including Trev’s sweet hummingbird vid. The hummers visited our klip dagaa this summer as we worked in the garden.

End of October, just when you thought you’d picked it all…

Highly unusual, but brother Chris gets the last word from his garden…

Last BLT of the season. In November!

Kuīni Ngā Wai Hono i te Po has been chosen as the eighth Māori monarch and successor to Kīngi Tūheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII.
KIINGITANGA

Via NZ news site Stuff. Click here to view the video…

It was the dawn of a new era at Tūrangawaewae Marae. With the declaration, “Hei Kuīni, hei Kuīni, hei Kuīni,” the crowd cheered.

There sat Ngā Wai Hono i te Po Paki, beside her father’s casket. She wore tauā, a wreath to mourn her dad, made from leaves and fernery. She looked up at the multitudes gathered under the sun in Ngāruawāhia only occasionally, and only briefly.

Her chin quivered when matua Doug Ruki, a rangatira from Ngāti Maniapoto, finished his address - a speech which brought home the reality of this historic occasion. An occasion filled with conflicting emotions of overwhelming grief and undeniable excitement about the new era of a new Queen.

At 27 years old, seven days after the death of her father, Kīngi Tūheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII, Ngā Wai Hono i te Po became the second ever Māori Queen. She is the eighth Ariki Nui, the leader of the Kīngitanga.

The Kīngitanga is a movement, started in 1858, to unify Māori - to assert mana motuhake, Māori self-determination - in the face of colonisation.

That is a kaupapa Ngā Wai Hono i te Po takes seriously.

While she enjoyed strong support from rangatira across the country this week, when they met to determine who would take the throne, it was no sure bet that she would one day be Queen.

Kuīni Ngā Wai Hono i te Po arrives at Taupiri Maunga for her father's burial.
MARK TAYLOR

In 2016, when Ngā Wai Hono i te Po was a teenager, most people - including her - assumed that her eldest brother, Whatumoana Paki, would be king.

In an interview for the documentary Behind the Throne, she said she would support Whatumoana to succeed their father.

“It’s hard. It’s hard thinking that one of us, it’s going to be one of us, is going to be put through the same things my dad’s been going through,” she said at the time.

Korotangi Paki, the youngest son, also voiced his support for Whatumoana to be king. As did their mother, who said there had been work - at the time - to ensure he was ready to take on the job.

Although there is no requirement for the eldest child of a monarch to take on the role of Ariki Nui, most of the Kīngitanga leaders were first-born. Tūheitia, however, was the third child, but eldest son. And Ngā Wai Hono i te Po is the youngest child.

On the prospect of becoming Queen, she said in 2016: “It’s scary.”

But it was a role, Tūheitia, in quiet, started preparing her for.

She has taken on this hugely public role, having kept a relatively low profile.

It was around 2021, during the pandemic, that Ngā Wai Hono i te Po started to play a more noticeable role within the Kīngitanga.

She had just finished her Masters of Arts, in Tikanga and Te Reo Māori, at the University of Waikato. As a student, she had excelled and was very active in the Waikato University community.

Her studies in mātauranga Māori gelled well with her love of kapa haka. She has been a regular at Te Matatini, and worked on a cruise ship after finishing high school as a kapa haka performer and leader of the Māori performing arts ope on the MS Noordam.

Her passion for kapa haka is shared with her partner, Te Oko Horoi Totorewa. They have been together since they were teenagers.

She gave back to her university, joining the Waikato University Council in 2023 after her father nominated her for the role.

Ngā Wai Hono i Te Po with her brothers beside their father, Kīngi Tūheitia in 2014.
Nick Reed / Waikato Times

His nomination was another clear signal that Ngā Wai Hono i te Po had earned his trust to take on the job of Ariki Nui.

Representing the Kīngitanga, Ngā Wai Hono i te Po was also put on the board of the Waitangi National Trust. That’s the group which looks after the Waitangi Treaty Grounds and organises the coming together of the nation for Waitangi Day each year.

But the clearest sign that Ngā Wai Hono i te Po was destined to be Queen came in 2022, when she was sent to meet Prince Charles in London.

The meeting was set for 140 years after her great-great-great-great-grandfather, King Tāwhiao, travelled to the UK to meet with Queen Victoria over concerns that her subjects were not honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi. But officials, back in the 1880s, would not let them meet.

Speaking to Aukaha News in London at the time, Ngā Wai Hono i te Po made clear her vision for Māori-Crown relations.

“Ka pono āku kōrero, ko tāku hiahia nui kia whakahokia mai ngā whenua katoa o te Māori ki te Māori,“ she said, asserting her desire that all Māori land be returned to Māori.

She said travelling to the UK, to meet the British royal family, had left her feeling some anger about their colonisation. She questioned why the British had come to steal land from Māori, when there was an abundance of space and resource at their home.

Her meeting with Charles, who also went on to become a king, would be focused on the future, she said. She wanted to talk to him about what they could do to support te ao Māori.

Commentators, on Thursday, predicted the reign of Ngā Wai Hono i te Po could intensify the political advocacy that the Kīngitanga has taken on over the past year. Tūheitia became an increasingly vocal leader of the Māori rights movement in recent months, as he criticised the coalition Government for its approach to Māori-Crown relations.

She would bring a youthful perspective, and a different one from many Māori leaders in generations above her.

Ngā Wai Hono i te Po was raised in an environment quite different from her predecessors.

She attended kōhanga reo, and was educated deeply in te reo, tikanga, and mātauranga Māori.

She used those skills to start her own career, before turning her attention to preparing to be Queen.

From across te ao Māori, and across Aotearoa, attention now turns to how Ngā Wai Hono i te Po will carry the weight of her new role.

She is young, she is confident, and although relatively unknown, there should be plenty of time ahead for the nation to get to know the new Māori Queen.

- Stuff

It’s a challenge keeping up with the nephew harvests and their kitchen efforts to feed themselves and their families. Am I biased? Nah, they’re straight-up gifted.

(above, Marc writes: Brussels with pumpkin flowers plus chives, two types of basil, rosemary, thyme, and lavender, all but the Brussels from our garden.)

Trev sent the pic above of freshly picked Malabar spinach, a tropical leafy green named after a coastal region in southwestern India. It is botanically not a true spinach yet resembles it. Here I’m pasting in a pic of ours. It’s mineral-y, substantial, out of control, and gosh does it love the heat.

Below, Trev’s Malabar spinach salad with pecans, pears, and goat cheese.

Marc says: Looking extra fiery…a bumper crop of Prairie Fire tomatoes we’ve been sharing with the neighbors.

I asked the nephews for their stories a bit late in the season for Dustin, who grows in Nashville (which heats up fast in spring). He wrote at end of July: The garden is definitely in a recovery phase. We had brutal June/July heat. Lettuce probably thrived the best this year. Romaine and leaf lettuce came early. We tried a new heat resistant type called slow bolt that just went to seed, but lived up to its name. 

Had a decent run with tomatoes and still more to come. Cherokee Purple are my favorite, just picked an Orange Jubliee, plenty of cherry and chocolate cherry tomatoes. We are in my favorite part of summer: BLT season! I've probably made 15 BLTs this month with our kale/lettuce and homemade pickles (one of my fav meals). Cucumbers always struggle, but I may get a few more. I grew some white pickling ones and they are fun. Shishito and thai peppers look good. Somehow we ended up with a lot of sauce tomatoes, san marzano and super sauce. Been making extra pico and guac quite a bit lately. Jalapeños are finally coming.

Dustin speaks for all our garden frustrations when he says: Green beans are 8 ft tall and strung up perfectly and never put off one bean. Such is life 😂 

Via Trevor, who grows just west of Chicago, Melanzana rossa di rotonda eggplants.

Here, his roasted Melanzanas with feta yogurt, pine nuts, and Aleppo flakes.

Marc writes from his Chicago garden: pollen party!

And fresh-picked from the garden…(ed note: look how happy his pepper plant is in its container).

Also via Marc: all picked end of July. Cast iron fried, seasoned with black garlic, salt, and pepper. No chickens in the big yard so that’s the only thing that came from elsewhere.

Good enough to eat.

Trev’s hot sauce, at left ghostly jalapeño and primero red habanero. At right Bulgarian carrot and criolla sella.

Row 7 Teagan lettuce harvest at Trevor’s…

Marc wonders: Does this look edible or just ornamental…?

Each of these gardens is unique in location, sun exposure, moisture, and soil. What grows (or doesn’t) vigorously for us here in Southwest Michigan doesn’t always match up with the nephews’ results.

Just as were were going to publish, Trev came in from the yard and sent this picture. His peppers are on fire…

Here’s his rundown: Shishitos at 12 o’clock and banana peppers at three. Then clockwise it’s Primero red, buena mulata, ghostly jalapeño, habanero, Aji Amarillo, criolla sella, red Serrano, lemon drop, sugar rush peach, and to complete the outside burning bush. Inside is Bulgarian carrot at 12, the red ghost (on accident), aji fantasy, aji chombo, aji Guyana. On the very inside there’s a single white habanero, a single aji mango, and a few aji Cristal.

Picking this bounty from our garden this morning, I thought of this from Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations: “Never forget that it takes very little to live a fulfilled and happy life.” Though I would note this seems like the opposite of very little. Nicely done, nephews. Keep those garden stories coming…

Brother Chris and I have an ongoing conversation about tomatoes. He likes hefty, BLT-size fruits almost to the exclusion of the smaller varieties. I am happy to have any homegrown tomato, any size, at any time.

It’s been an exceptional growing year here and at Chris’s west of Chicago.

At left above is the NZ Rainbow Giant, seed for which I got at the hardware store in Golden Bay, South Island NZ.

Below, Chris says he’s been picking this much—13 pounds!—every other day. He notes there are five large Dr Wyches on the bottom.

Speaking of Dr Wyche, this description of seed origin raises more questions than it answers…

This heirloom was introduced to Seed Savers Exchange by the late Dr. John Wyche, who was once a co-owner of the Cole Brothers Circus and used the manure of elephants to fertilize his heritage gardens.

Sounds like someone I would have liked to know. Here’s a sliced Dr Wyche from our garden, ready for a BLT.

In August, 2020, before most of us were vaccinated, we wrote from Covid Cafe, and this post on your individual BLT preferences remains one of my favorites. Click here to see it and if you have more to say, let us know in comments.

We investigated the doctor further. His “ornery sense of humor” makes him feel almost like a member of our family.

Dr. John Wyche was a master gardener who lived on the top of a rock mountain near Hugo, Oklahoma. He moved hundreds of tons of rocks to build the walls of twenty-two terraced gardens around his home. The materials to "make" his soil had to be hauled up the mountain: leaves, sawdust, loam, pine needles, and lots of elephant manure. (He used to own Cole Bros. Circus.)

Dr. Wyche was one of the founding members of the Seed Savers Exchange. He sent out thousands of packets of free seeds each year to anyone who would send him postage and never wanted anything in return, except to help other gardeners. His seeds are scattered through this Yearbook, including some of our most valued ones which his people, the Cherokee, brought over the Trail of Tears in 1836.

Dr. Wyche enriched our project not only with his seeds, but also with his friendship. His ornery sense of humor was delightful and he was a wonderful, warm, mailbox friend to many of us.

One last shot of summer beauty from our garden. Thanks to Trev for the Dr Wyche plant start.