Glorious Tomatoes

These are the very first tomatoes from our garden! The really ribbed ones are Florentine tomatoes and the really round one in the back is a Brown German. Farmer Jeff planted 250 tomatoes, all raised from seeds, which are comprised of 35 varieties.



We quickly went to work on these tomatoes and paired them with home grown Genovese and Opal basil, bufalo mozzarella (which can be found at our local store, the Cheese Shop) and then some lovely southern Italian olive oil which we carried home with us!














We have also been enjoying a record crop of stone fruit. We have already picked and preserved jars of exquisite Santa Rosa plum jam. I can't get over the color. It is as though we have captured a sunset in a jar. Did I mention the flavor? Farmer Chef Jeff summed in up best when he said, "this just tastes like summer". Boy howdy, is he right!

We are not the only ones that are thoroughly enjoying the summer produce. Our dogs and chickens LOVE whatever we are not eating. We are currently doing work on the house and in our yard, so we are keeping the dogs in a big dog pen. This has really worked out to our advantage because the dogs used to pick the ripening fruit right off the trees! We would be lucky to get any of the low lying fruit! While amusing, it is really annoying!

Nonetheless, I can't help but share some tomato bits with our beloved chocolate lab, Callebaut. He takes it so gently, looking like he is accepting a communion wafer. He is blissed!