Green Beans!

Today has been a chill day at home. I skipped breakfast in favor of coffee and finishing a friend’s blog and then went all out for lunch. We made lemon pepper chicken with brown rice, roasted home-grown green beans, and crostini made with sungold tomatoes, homemade wheat French bread, fresh parsley, olive oil, and feta cheese. Everything on the table except the rice, olive oil, chicken, and feta was either grown in our garden or within 100 miles of us. It feels good to cook to cook sustainably, but it is also so, so delicious. Satisfies the epicurean in me.

Chris and I have anxiously been awaiting our purple podded pole beans to show us some beans, and over vacation, our five plants went into full production mode! We now have more than we can pick (or eat!) each day, so my next goal is to figure out how to freeze them. Roasting them went really well today, and it was fun to watch the formerly purple green beans turn colors!

Our tomato plants aren’t faring so well. One of them became infested with whitefly while we were gone, and two of them seem to have weak branches. However, all six are full of baby green tomatoes, so we have high hopes! We’ve tried organic fungicide, organic insecticide, a Murphy’s oil soap/water dilution, and a new organic insecticidal soap so far to combat the whitefly. They’re persistent little buggers, but we are determined to win this fight!

Yesterday we spent most of the day prepping for and then taking engagement pictures for some friends of ours. Chris has incredible stamina, and he came out with some beautiful pictures, which I’m sure will be posted on his website soon.

I have a busy afternoon ahead of me. Lots of laundry, plus updating my Etsy shop, and planting our fall garden. Pumpkins (finally found the seed packet!), two kinds of kale, alpine strawberries, and butternut squash are on the list. What do you have planned for fall?