On Friday we were due for our bi-weekly garden visitation. However, James had to travel to California; so, I drove upstate by myself. With several How Stuff Works podcasts entertaining my curious mind and with the Taconic wowing my weary eyes with foliage landscapes at every turn, it turned out to be a lovely drive.
With green rapidly fading from the scene, the garden still had a couple of green surprises for me: the last batch of green tomatoes, string beans, the relentless shishito peppers, 2 radishes and even 3 cucumbers! (Which brings the total number of cucumbers I harvested this year to 5. Ok, maybe to 10…)
I spent some time on Friday afternoon cleaning up in the garden. It gets dark around 6 now, so I didn’t have that much time. The dusk’s sudden advance interrupted my activities; I raised my eyes from wilted tomato plants I was pulling out of the ground and suddenly saw a gleaming beam of red light shooting out from the woods. It looked almost like the tail of a meteor — but, in fact, it was the tail of a rainbow. . . . CONTINUE READING → Out with the green!
In the morning I thought to myself: Wait, I forgot to include carrots in my previous Orange post! What a scandal! But then I unearthed this specimen and was happy about this oversight. In my opinion, this carrot fully deserves its own post.
Which turned into an entire photo shoot. Have I missed my calling as a carrot model?
And that’s why I saved the best for last. I’m talking about the latest photo quiz, of course. Those green cherry-sized tomato-like berries, as correctly identified by both Kristik and Husband, are the proper fruit of the potato plant. Potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) and tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum) are basically brothers (or sisters); so, if you confused them in the quiz, it was for a good reason. Just make sure not to confuse them in real life: potato berries, according to my sources, are poisonous and contain toxic compounds glycoalkaloids, that affect the nervous system and can cause weakness and confusion. (Wait, am I sure I haven’t been eating them? Because that would explain a lot…) These toxins are also present in other nightshades, like tomato and eggplant, especially in their foliage, and also in the potato tubers that have turned green due to photosynthesis. Wikipedia assures, however, that potato poisoning is quite a rare occurrence.
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