Went outside a couple of days ago and picked tomatoes and chard. Love this warm fall we are having.

Garden vegetables in a basket

Linking with Our World Tuesday, Macro Monday, Ruby Tuesday 2, Wordless Wednesday, Outdoor Wednesday, Wednesday Around the World (WATW), Thursday Challenge (Orange), Photo Friday, Orange You Glad It’s Friday, Pink Saturday, and Saturday Show Off. While you are here, please look around a bit. Try a new tag or category?

Picked these yesterday. Yum!

Yellow cherry tomatoes and some big ones, just picked

Linking to I Heart Macro Saturday, Macro Monday, Monday Mellow Yellows, Ruby Tuesday 2, Orange You Glad It’s Friday, Mandarin Orange Monday, Outdoor Wednesday, NF Blo-Ma Tuesday, Straight out of the Camera Sunday, Our World Tuesday, My Romantic Home, and Saturday Show Off. If there is only one photo here, click on the curly letters of Sara’s Fave Photos Blog above to see a few more. Thanks!

My tomatoes look and taste great this year. Last year many of them split, which was so disappointing. What I learned was that happened because I had underwatered, so the tomatoes had thick, tough skins which burst when the plant got a good dousing when it rained. This year I was better about the watering and it made a big difference. Also I used better fertilizer, added alfalfa meal at planting, AND went out with a dry paintbrush when it was flowering to try to get better fruit set. Something worked!

Cherry tomatoes in different stages of ripeness

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Every New Year’s Eve I cut up some vegetables for our after midnight snack, along with the crabmeat and cream cheese dip, with potato chips! Hey, the veggies cancel out the yummy fats, is how I think. Hope you had a wonderful celebration, and the luckiest year to you in 2013.

The carrots and broccoli are from our backyard!

Joining up at Water World Wednesday, Nature’s Footsteps Waters, Ruby Tuesday 2, and Macro Monday. If there’s only the one photo here, please click on Sara’s Fave Photos Blog above for the rest. Thanks for visiting, and come back soon!

Winter in Seattle, so far north, can be challenging when the light is so reduced. But the good part of the low-angled sun is that when it actually is sunny, the light streams in the south windows and makes marvelous shadows. This is my kitchen counter the other day. I love this image and I’m calling it my Best Post of the Week. Thanks for stopping by!

Participating in SOOC Sunday (straight out of the camera), Shadow Shot Sunday 2, My Romantic Home, Mellow Yellow Monday, Macro Monday, and Ruby Tuesday 2.

I read that knowing tomatoes are a fruit is intelligent, but knowing not to use them in fruit salad is wise. But when they are growing in your backyard, doesn’t the container of both of them look so pretty? And let me tell you, they BOTH are super sweet!

I’m joining up at My Romantic Home, SOOC Sunday (straight out of the camera), Macro Monday, Shadow Shot Sunday 2, Mellow Yellow Monday and Ruby Tuesday 2. Don’t forget to click on Sara’s Fave Photos above if there is only one photo below. And while you are here, perhaps browse in the My Garden category?

After midnight on New Year’s Eve, I like to drink Champagne and eat crab dip with a fresh vegetable plate and ridged potato chips. It’s not the most common food for the first thing all year, but it’s what I’ve been doing for a long, long time. The crab dip is super easy.

Crab Dip 

One pkg. 8 ozs. Philadephia brand cream cheese, room temperature so it’s easier to blend
1/3 cup cream (or milk)
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 and 1/2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
Dash garlic powder
Dash salt (optional)
One 6 oz. can crab meat

Put cream cheese and milk or cream in a bowl. Mix with a fork until smooth. Add rest of ingredients except crab. Mix until smooth. Add drained crab meat; mix well. There you go!

Potato chips are fabulous, but actually the veggies are all super good with some crab dip on them. Happy New Year!

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While I was visiting Northern California in January, I had a chance to drop into the Oakville Grocery in Healdsburg, right in the Sonoma County Wine Country. The area is famous for food as much as wine, and deservedly so. Don’t these look yummy? Fresh and perfect.

Visit Ruby Tuesday, SOOC (straight out of the camera), and Color Carnival for lots of great photos on a theme. And perhaps try a search for the word Red or Tomatoes here first?

On New Year’s Eve we like to have a crab and cream cheese dip, and to make sure there are enough calories, only with ridged potato chips. Only once a year, but still. So in recent years, I”ve been adding a vegetable plate, also very good to stick in crab dip. This year we got to use the crab we actually caught ourselves in September, which was super wonderful. I hope your New Year’s Eve was as delicious.

Visit Ruby Tuesday for more intriguing images with red. And look around this blog or Free Photos while you’re here, why don’t you?

I can hardly believe that I got any tomatoes at all, but here is proof. September is a bit late for first tomatoes, though, don’t you think? I threw a couple of handfuls of dolomitic lime on the soil at planting and it made a huge difference. No more yucky blossom-end rot, and the vines look GREAT. Here in the Pacific Northwest the soil tends to be pretty acidic, thus easy success with rhodies, blueberries and evergreens. But tomatoes seem to prefer a more alkaline soil.

Gardening note: I was always hesitant to use dolomitic lime because I was sure it must make the soil more acidic—because it was “lime” and that had to be acid, right? WRONG. Silly me. It makes the soil more alkaline just like it says on the box and is great for plants like lilacs, peonies (mine flowered for the first time!) and hellebores, all of which really hate an acid soil.

How about browsing the “Vegetables/Fruits” category here—then visit Ruby Tuesday for more things red and ruby, Color Carnival for more brilliant color, and SOOC for more straight-out-of-the-camera shots. And if you’ve arrived here from a link, do click on Sara’s Fave Photos to see the full blog with the latest and the greatest photos.