A Whole Day of Rain

We got 1.5" of rain in the rain gauge during the last 24 hour period!  It was a nice slow rain that took to the dry ground.  It is (amazingly) still dry out there even with all that moisture.  I loved being woke up by a rain storm outside the window.

We had cloudy skies this morning which brought the sunshine in by mid-morning.  With it came wind.  I stopped at the lake front during lunch and watch the waves crash over the breakwater at South Shore Marina.  The air show is this weekend, so we had a little overhead entertainment as well.  There were a handful of people who chose this little spot to enjoy some water watching as well as enjoy the company of strangers.

I bagged up my onions tonight and hung them in the basement.  I weighed them and found that I have 30 pounds of onions! I thought I was being optimistic saving so many mesh bags, but I filled three large orange bags quite easily.  I will be able to share my bounty this year.  I sliced up one with eggplant and zucchini and fried the whole slices dipped in egg and flour on the griddle with butter.  The results were like having a lower fat, less batter onion disc.

Tomorrow, I will have to pick green beans and soy.  I had a handful of soy which I cooked up and put in a tomato salad for lunch.  Edamame is a nice addition to salads or just eating with a bit of salt.  (August 3, 2011) http://gardeninggwen.blogspot.com/2011/08/soybeans-aka-edamame.html I grew half of my soy beans from new seed and half from seed that I ripened on the plants and harvested dry last fall.  Both plots germinated and grew equally well, so I think that seed saving was successful with this crop.

My neighbor has shared his early tomatoes with me as well as enough to share with the other neighbors.  His garden is quite large even after shortening it 20' or so this past year.  He grew a row of beans the full length of the garden which is well over 40' long.  They have already canned and frozen all they will use.  I passed the word on to others and offered the suggestion to donate to Harvest for the Hungry as they were opting to rip out the plants to stop the harvest.  Several soup kitchens and food pantries are also nearby, so I think they have abandoned the thoughts of pulling the plants.  They also have several cherry type tomato plants which are producing heavily.  I took a bag to work and put them on the basket on the corner of my desk.  My coworkers did a good job of eating them all.

I am thankful for some cool weather as it is time to can some French beans this weekend.  I will eagerly share the results of that job.