Tomatoes, Corn, and Crabs

They call New Jersey the Garden State because there are some things that grow here that just taste better than from other places*.  This would include tomatoes, corn, and blueberries.  Blueberries are a little past their season now, but the corn and tomatoes are right in the midst of theirs.  HWSNBP usually starts tomato seedlings inside in the spring and this year he continued to do so, only this time he was given seed by one of our neighbors at the condo who used to work for the seed company we usually ordered from.  Our neighbor really endorsed this particular tomato called 4th of July for its quickness to ripen and its great production.  HWNSNBP had many plants to pass out amongst our friends and family and of course to the neighbor who recommended them.  They did grow quickly and were ripening right after the 4th of July as planned.  They are not your big juicy tomato but bigger than cherry tomatoes and a nice salad size.  

GS3 and GS2 tasting their first harvest.  Cherries and 4th of July's.

What we found however, was that the skin was very hard and not easy to bite through or cut without a serrated knife.  But we didn't say anything to our neighbor.  It was he who came over and apologized to us saying that there must have been a problem with the seed production because he and his wife found them unpalatable and had, in fact, ripped out the plant they had and threw it away very disappointed.  He said he even contacted the company to have them investigate how the production became so screwed up, but he doubts that they will get back to him about it.  Needless to say, we won't be using the extra seed that wasn't planted next year.  Our neighbor has promised to get us some seed for two other varieties that he said are good.  I'm sure we'll try them, but I'm going to remind HWNSNBP to make sure that we have at least one plant of the regular tomatoes we usually get.  (In addition to the cherries which are still good.)  

We had some corn on the cob in Tennessee, but I don't think it was as good as our Jersey corn.  I am probably biased though.  This time of year there is no shortage of farm stands carrying all the fresh local produce.  I think we tried growing corn one year a couple of decades back, but if I remember correctly, you need a plot at least 12' x 12' in order to get good pollination which was the first drawback.  The second was the squirrels.  A small corn patch is no match for a hungry squirrel or two.  So we get our corn from the farmstand.  It's taken me years to realize that even though it's fun to eat it right off the cob, it's much easier to cook it and then cut it off the cob before eating.  See, you can teach an old dog new tricks.  So this index card I did a few nights ago was inspired by the corn harvest and the tangle is appropriately called Corn Rows by Alice Hendon CZT.

And now for some crab talk.  In a few days we'll be having our annual crabbing expedition with our Table 7 group - it's the 25th anniversary so I'm told.  I will not be on the boat this year.  The twisting and bending, and the unsureness of my balance still will have me on shore.  Rest assured HWNSNBP and I have done some fishing already (and I'm ahead 3 to 1 in the fish count), but the dock has a railing that I can lean on as opposed to a bobbing boat.  I was looking for something the other day in a cabinet I had some craft items stored in and when I moved one thing, something got accidently dumped out and I had to take out all the cabinet contents to clean it up.  In the process I came upon some things I had forgotten and a couple of things that I was recently looking for that I thought were lost forever.  The thing that I had forgotten was a box of wooden crab ornaments.  I used one of them for this index card below.  I traced the crab onto the card and then added the tangle to the background before I colored the entire thing.  The name of the background tangle is Penta by Hennie Brouwer.

HWNSNBP wants me to frame this one to hang in the condo.   

We dodged the heavy rain and tornadoes that were predicted in our area from the remnants of Hurricane Debby.  I did lose the pot from my lemon tree though from the wind.  It had been knocked over a couple of times this summer but always went down pretty easy.  This time, not so much.

We will have to go pot shopping to replace that one, and we might even have to go up one size.  I'm just concerned that the tree will be getting too big for the house soon and I don't know what I'll do with it.  It's about 10 years old now and hasn't produced any lemons.  Thoughts?