Food Inc.

I recently watched Food, Inc. again. I think the movie presented a lot of great facts regarding our current food system. It definitely made me consider not eating meat after seeing all those factory farming operations. I don’t actually buy non-organic meat, and really try to buy local organic meat, if at all, from a nice farmer about 15 miles from my house. It is amazing to see how much agriculture has changed since WWII.

Part of me thinks it is great that we can produce so much food at such a cheap monetary cost, but what about the other costs involved with growing this cheap food? A few years ago I really started getting involved in the local food movement. The reason? All the recalls on things like spinach for E. coli, and peanut butter for salmonella poisoning. At that point I knew something was seriously wrong. I had never really thought about food before, not because I didn’t like high quality, but because I just assumed it would be safe like when my mom grew her garden. How wrong I was.

Now I feel almost obsessed about local and organic food. I use the term organic loosely here though. It seems to me that there have been so many changes to what the USDA thinks “organic” means. So now I am more likely to ask a local farmer what he does, whether he is certified organic is less important to me than what he says he does to his crops, his animals etc.

One of the interesting points from the movie was from the CEO of Stonyfield saying it would be impossible for everyone to eat within 100 miles of their house. I wonder how accurate that is. I know that there are definitely places where it is more difficult to find quality food, but I do wonder if it is possible. I guess I am just lucky to live in the area that I do, which I never expected I would say :-) Even though we have a short growing season, it seems to work out.

I am anxious to have a lot of storage crops this year. This will be the year of preservation for me…well that is the plan. Can I do it? I sure hope so. It would be really wonderful to be one of the blogs that commits to eating only from their food stores through the winter. How exciting would that be? Not to have to rely on a grocery store for anything. We’ll see how plausible that is. Although I have to say, we have been eating mainly rice and beans for the past few weeks in an effort to save money at the grocery store, and it is all stuff I already have on hand, not bad :-)

Has anyone else seen this movie? What did you think about it? I’ve heard some people say there weren’t enough facts involved, but I disagree. I think there were just enough facts to make you want to do more personal research and prepare in your own personal way. Overall, excellent movie!

CSA

As you know, this is the first year we have had a CSA, and I have to say that it was the best investment ever! We have gotten lettuce every week since the first week in June, and the amount of lettuce we have received alone has more than recouped our investment. Of course, we don't eat nearly as many salads as we should be. I know that soon we won't be having anymore lettuce for another year. I haven't been nearly as good about posting pictures as I had hoped either, so here are some pictures of the past couple weeks worth:

CSA week 3

I can't believe that we already are picking up our 3rd week's share. The summer is starting to fly by...I guess having a new baby does that. It's crazy to me that little Miss Emma is going to be 6 weeks on Monday...yeah...crazy. So I am a little behind in posting...what a surprise. I'm hoping eventually someday my life will resemble order again. Perhaps not with a baby though...Onto this weeks goods!

This week our basket was even bigger than the past 2 weeks. Literally, the basket that holds our produce had doubled in size. We got the following:

2 bags of beets
3 bags of lettuce
1 bag of spinach which looks like baby swiss chard
1 bag of carrots
1 bag of broccoli
1 bunch of green onions

Now, I don't know what the grocery prices are like for anyone else out there, but that amount of produce probably would have cost us around $50 at the grocery store (seeing as how our CSA farm is certified Organic). And we got it for a mere $20, not bad right? I am really excited to see how the weeks progress. Since we are in Maine it takes a little longer for produce to come in during the summer, so the beginning is a lot of greens, but once we get into July and August, I foresee a large amount of veggies coming through...I just wish we had a way to preserve lettuce. Now for some pictures :-)

2008 Garden!!!

OK, so I can't seem to post more than once in a great while. I am really hoping to change that now that we have our precious baby Emma home and I am feeling so much better. I won't get into the details of my labor and delivery, let's just say that it didn't go nearly as well as I had hoped. But, on the bright side, I now have this perfect little person at home with me who has brought so much joy to my life and Matt's life. We are extremely blessed!

Now onto my *container* garden for this year! Matt and I finally got everything into the pots this past weekend. I was getting worried that we wouldn't actually be able to plant all the seedlings, but alas, Nana was able to come and watch the little one for a couple hours while we worked outside. I ended up with 6 Brandywine tomato plants, 6 roma tomato plants, 6 basil, 3 cilantro, 2 sweet peppers, 1 jalapeno pepper, and either 3 cucumber plants or 2 cucumbers and a zucchinni. I swear that I bought a zuke plant, but for the life of me, I can't actually see where I put it or planted it. And I also can't remember if we ended up buying 2 or 3 cucumber plants this year. I have a feeling I lost the zucchini plant in transit, don't ask me how.

So here are some pictures of my beautiful garden space up on the high high deck, which, by the way, I am extremely happy we have now. My mom had a ton of herbs up on her deck in pots (she lives just down the street from us), and something got up on the deck and ate them all...along with most of her flowers. We are thinking woodchucks, but can they climb stairs? Never seen any rabbits around here...so we are at a loss...and my mom is seriously upset about it. I'm all for nature, but when something comes up on the deck and eats the plants...come on! That's why I'm happy that any animals that want to eat our plants have to climb up 20 steps to get to our deck ;-) Oh yeah...pictures :-)

I also wanted to talk about my CSA share. I meant to actually post a picture last week for our first share pickup, but in order to post the picture we actually would have needed to take a picture. So instead I will tell you what we got last week. In our 1st CSA share ever we received:

2 huge bags of spinach
5 baby beets and beet greens
3 bags of lettuce
1 bunch of scallions
1 bunch of radishes
2 chinese cabbage

It was a lot of food, and actually we still have a lot of it left over which is interesting. I thought for sure we would eat it all, but apparently I was wrong! Not that I mind having extra lettuce, might as well eat as many fresh salads as possible :-)

This week we received:

8 beets with beet greens (obsviously they come with the greens, but I find that is a whole other meal side)
1 bunch of carrots
2 bags of spinach that looks like baby beet greens (but the board at the farm assured me it was actually spinach, the type I can't remember at this point)
1 bag of lettuce

Now onto the pictures :-)

the art of not blogging consistently

OK, so clearly I haven't held up my side of the bargain...blogging more frequently. I feel like I have a good excuse. I am pregnant, I can barely put two coherent thoughts together right now :-) I am hoping that this little baby wants to come out soon though, because her mama is getting slightly impatient. I am kind of on bed rest...well...if I do too much I swell to the size of a large elephant, and then it ends up taking me at least 3 hours to deflate a bit. Figures. I have gained way more weight than any normal person should during pregnancy. OK, so it hasn't been nearly that bad. I mean, I didn't have any morning sickness! Severe back pain, yes, contractions since 24 weeks...sure...but no morning sickness!

So I'm not working now. And I think that is a good thing. I think that my body was really telling me to stop. I have had fewer contractions in the past couple weeks, and that makes me happy, of course now I want the contractions to be coming on nice and strong...unfortunately not happening. But what do I do when I don't work? Well, let's see...I go on the internet. I don't just go on the internet for entertainment news anymore...ahhh the naivety of a previous life. Nope, now I am on the internet researching everything bad in the world. I have become some crazy extremist I believe. I think that it must be partially hormonal though.

Since last year I have spent a lot of time researching the relocalization of food, peak oil, being kinder to the environment. I'm sure everyone that has read this blog actually sees what a struggle it has been for me. Yet, now, I am starting to freak out even more. It seems like everything I have been spewing off to my co-workers and friends and family about food shortages etc. really is happening. Yesterday I heard that Costco and Sam's Club are both limiting (rationing) the amount of rice you can buy. But, they assure us there is no shortage of rice. That I don't understand. Then this morning...the Wall Street Journal posts an article about how it is time to start stockpiling food. Yeah...that is bad. The Wall Street Journal? It is a publication that I find truly unbiased, which is nice considering I am a conservative republican baptist green mama. :-)

See I don't think that the media is treating this in the best way at all. All week the Today show has talked about the rising food prices and the shortages that we are starting to have. This causes people to panic and stockpile food, which causes shortages and prices to go up. That is not going to help us. Instead, I wish that the media actually gave ideas how to deal with these types of problems. Yes, it is good to prepare for a disaster, but not everyone all at once. Gradually, over time, is what is needed. Instead, I think that they need to get into information about how to grow some of your own food. How it is important to eat seasonal local food and stop relying on food from California. I mean, I live in Maine, we produce quite a bit of food in Maine. Potatoes for one thing, it is a huge crop for the northern part of our state. Yes, I can find Maine potatoes at the grocery store, but more often than not they are buried under the Idaho potatoes...is there a reason we need Idaho potatoes when we produce plenty in Maine as it is? Maybe we don't actually produce enough potatoes in Maine to feed the state, but I would expect we do. And another thing, maple syrup...we have plenty of Maine made maple syrup, yet, it is most likely overpowered on the shelves by the stuff from Vermont. Why is that? OK, so these are probably petty examples...but I don't get it.

I am so thankful that we are joining the CSA this year. I think it is going to be a very difficult summer with buying food from the grocery store...oil prices are through the roof, gas prices keep going higher and higher. What is next? I am seriously concerned about bringing my daughter into this world, and how we are going to provide for her. (this is where the hormones come in) So Matt works an hour away from our house...that is 50 miles...so 100 miles a day on the car, that is filling up twice a week. At least our little yaris gets good gas mileage. But, at what point is it not worth it anymore? When do we sell everything and move into an apartment? OK, we have a ways to go before that would need to happen. It is still a concern though. Do we sell the other car? Try and pay down some of our debt? Well Dave Ramsey would say absolutely...and so would I. But, how do you sell all of this stuff in a time of economic downturn? Part of me feels guilty unloading our possessions on someone else who may not really realize what is going on. At the same time, having less debt is always a plus.

We are looking into getting a wood stove...and also turning part of the upstairs of our house into a studio apartment. It might be able to help us with the oil prices next year. I keep telling my brother and sister-in-law to move in with us. No one listens to me though, and really, I'm kind of crazy, so I'm sure they want to stay as far away from us as possible. I have been talking about a commune, get some cute little goats and chickens and have a community living experience with the rest of my family. It may eventually come to that. Maybe it won't. And will my poor husband be able to keep up with me and all my craziness? Who knows :-) I'm hoping that things just all of a sudden become clear to me and soon, because I feel like I am going in circles and am at a stand still as to what I should do next.

For the time being I am planning on getting all of my jars ready for a major canning extravaganza this summer/fall, and hopefully I will be able to preserve a lot of what we receive from the CSA. Other than that, it is trying to figure out how to afford to install a wood stove in a house with no working chimney, and how to afford to finish fixing up the upstairs of the house so it is livable. Then I can work on calming myself down a bit...I do know that God will always provide for me, but sometimes not knowing how is the worst part for any person to deal with.

busy/OLS weeks 8 & 9

I never realized how busy I get sometimes! But, here it is, a couple weeks after my last entry, and I don't even know where the time has gone! I have been crazy busy at work doing our physical inventory and valuation...fun stuff let me tell you. So, by the time I get home at night, I have no desire to even look at the computer, or do much else for that matter!

I haven't even had a chance to post last weeks OLS meal, which we had! I don't even know if I took pictures of it...I made pizza. I have never made pizza dough from scratch, but it was really easy. I think it was just flour water and yeast (the yeast was not local). I didn't have any pizza sauce, so I just sliced up some yummy tomatoes from the garden and put those on the pizza dough, with some olive oil and salt. I didn't have local cheese either, just your everyday shredded mozzarella...I still can't find milk that isn't "ultra-pasteurized", and am not sure I am ready for actual raw milk, is there something in the middle? Then on the cheese, green peppers from the garden, and also some shredded chicken that I had roasted up the day before. It was really really good. It also made more pizza then I knew what to do with. I think next time I will freeze half of the dough so that it is available to me later on for an easy pizza...I think I can freeze the dough, does anyone see a problem with that?

This week's local meal, also no pictures, I took all the many veggies I had in the fridge...ok so it was zukes, onion, peppers from the garden...not as much variety as I thought. Then I just put them on the grill. It was delicious, that's for sure. I have never had grilled zucchini, I have to say it really brought out some amazing flavor. Seasoned with just a bit of (non-local) olive oil and salt and pepper. Yum!

I'm hoping that I can get back on track with posting, although I don't know what I want to post about now. I am still concentrating a lot on getting the house finished, and just settling into a normal life...It's really nice to feel slightly settled.

I love my garden!!

I have been wanting to get these pictures up for a while now, but have been so busy! Life never slows down, that's for sure. We had our first tomato this past week! As you can see Matt had a lot of fun arranging our food to take a picture :-) And I have to say, it was the best tomato ever! Now if the other 100 or so would turn red, I would be happy! And my one cucumber plant is seriously producing a lot. Well, I have no idea how much a cucumber plant usually produces, but we are around 20 cukes from this one plant...I kept meaning to make pickles, but they disappear way too fast for me to do anything besides cut them up for sandwiches or just plain with a little salt...yum! I have been eating peppers and cukes for dinner most nights, so how much more local can I get?!

One Local Summer Week 7

This week I decided to try making tortillas. I had seen the recipe on Liz's site, and figured I would try it. I have been in a bit of a baking mood recently. It was actually really easy. Of course I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I should have. So I made the tortillas with King Arthur flour, non-local oil, and some local (tap) water :-) Can't really beat that!



I also decided to start picking the jalapeno peppers that are growing on my plant on the deck. I wanted to make pico de gallo, and of course wanted it super hot, but since Matt wasn't in the mood for hot, I made a nice mild pico de gallo (no seeds or ribs). I picked up some organic tomatoes and onions at the Farmers' Market (Hallowell, 6 miles) and used a bit of non-local lemon juice and some salt. Yum! I love to just put this over salad greens as well.




And for the filling, we scrambled up some free range eggs, also from the Farmers' market. This was the point at which we forgot to take pictures. Matt is almost finished with his here :-)




Mine were closer to being whole when I remembered to take the picture. All in all, really a great meal!




I hope to make these again soon, and the next time I think I will probably try and bake them to make nacho chips.

One Local Summer Week 4

Today I decided to make my OLS meal, and after this dreary cold and rainy day I figured soup would be perfect! My old standby is my take on the Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana soup. Usually I start out with some onion, but I didn't see any at the Farmers' Market, so instead, I just took my organic local hot sausage (Snafu, 15 miles) and sauteed it with a little non-local olive oil and red pepper flakes.

Then I took some of the chicken stock I made and froze from my roasted chicken a couple weeks ago, and threw that in the pot after the sausage was browned. Add a little salt and more red pepper flakes...I really do enjoy spicy food, have I mentioned that before? Anyways, in went some sliced up local Maine potatoes, from the Fish and Produce guy in Hallowell. I didn't realize that all of the produce they sell comes from his father just a few miles away. They aren't certified organic, but they don't spray and seem to farm organically. It's amazing what a few questions will tell you! Let the potatoes cook, and then add some Kale, and maybe a little more salt (I am a firm believer in seasoning every stage of the meal.) When the kale is wilted, just add a little heavy cream, or in our case half and half from Oakhurst farms, then the soup is done. Although it tastes much better if you let it sit overnight. Usually I add a little cheese to top it off, but since I didn't have any local cheese, we skipped that :-)

So here it is in all it's glory, my lovely soup, and probably one of my most favorite meals. And pretty easy to make. I have enough for tomorrow's dinner as well. In my original recipe I also add a little bacon which I could have done if I had thought far enough in advance and bought the bacon at the farmer's market on Saturday...but, overall not bad at all!

I am really enjoying putting together local meals. I really want to thank Liz for getting me to think about my food and where it comes from. I feel so much healthier eating this way as well. I have also found that I tend to have more local meals during the week, although we still do buy lot of stuff too. But, it is all about baby steps and that is what we are trying to do.

garden update

My garden is doing so well! I am super excited about it. I can't wait to actually be able to pick more from my garden. I have been picking the herbs constantly, but no actual vegetables. Well...I did have that little green pepper that I just couldn't manage to wait to pick :-) I am so happy that nothing is dead yet though!

Friday I came home from work and looked up at the step and deck where all of my plants are, it looked a little different though, so I went around to the front of the steps to see properly. I looked up the steps, and there were my two cherry tomato plants, completely tipped over and out of their pots. I almost dropped at the foot of the stairs. I ran up to look at them, and most of the little tomatoes that had been on the plant had been snapped off.

Luckily I was able to get the whole plant back in the pot, and some of the tomatoes are still on there. I am just hoping that it doesn't die. I think the saving grace was that I had cages around those two plants, so when the wind blew them over, they kind of got stuck upside down on the step, and weren't able to go anywhere else. If they had completely fallen down all the steps...well it would have been all over.

Tomato cages...well...I only had 3 tomato cages, so most of my tomatoes seem to be growing like a forest currently. Is that bad? Are they not going to grow well? I can't imagine that is the case, because all of my tomato plants have tons of tomatoes on them. I planted 13 tomato plants so that in case I killed most of them, I would still be able to have a few tomatoes for salads and maybe to make a little sauce to throw in the freezer. How was I to know that my tomato plants would take off and I would have enough tomatoes to feed me for at least 2 years? Well here are my pictures then:

One Local Summer Week 3!

This week for our local meal I was finally able to take something from my garden. It was very satisfying to run up the stairs and pick my first green pepper! Of course, if I had left it on much longer obviously it would have been bigger, but I just couldn't wait anymore! I also used some of the basil. I have been picking basil about every couple of days off my little basil plant, it seems to enjoy growing, and I am certainly enjoying eating it!







What One Local Summer is allowing me to do is be more creative with my meals. I have said before that I love cooking, so to have to figure out what to make with what is available...well it is interesting to say the least. I have baked biscuits, bread, and a chicken. This week? I decided I would try my hand at making pasta. I mean, how hard can it be? Some flour, and some eggs, check and check. I had both of those local, eggs from Monmouth and flour from King Arthur in VT. I am still using up the last of my VT flour, and then will be buying the "Maine milled" flour that is at the health food store. I put the ingredients into my lovely green kitchen aid mixer (my favorite appliance by far, if only for the color) not quite sure what would come out.





I made the dough, and realized I now needed to roll it out with a rolling pin, or put it through the pasta attachment...it was at this point that I realized that I had neither...so what did I do? Well, being oh so creative, I just stretched and stretched the dough...yeah...and then I attempted to cut the dough with a butter knife...we are still unpacking the kitchen stuff :-P





The above is what I came up with for pasta...I named it heathernguine. Although from the picture it appears more like funnel cake with confectioners sugar...



I then let my heathernguine sit while I made sauce. I chopped up some local tomatoes, Backyard Beauties, and put them in a sauce pan with some non-local olive oil and garlic, let it cook down and simmer. While that was simmering, I browned my organic and local hot sausage from Snafu Acres with my fresh picked green pepper and some hot pepper flakes (non-local). Then I put the sausage mixture in with the tomatoes...it was at that point I realized even if the pasta sucked I could totally eat the tomatoes and sausage...yum!






The above is the final meal, with Gritty's to wash it down with :-) Overall it got the "my favorite meal ever" award from Matt, and that makes me happy. Now...the next time I make pasta...I will have a roller...or better yet...the kitchen aid pasta attachment :-)

updates

I can't believe it is actually July right now, I don't think I remember having June! Everything has been crazy busy around my house...and it is about to get crazier. I have weddings galore this month...including my baby brother's wedding...awwww :-) Matt and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary on the 2nd, and 8 years of being together on the 3rd...again...crazy.

Yesterday we managed to put in new flooring in the living room. Yay! That means I can walk from the front door of the house all the way to the back of the house in my bare feet now...no more carrying shoes from the entryway to the living room so we can get to the bedroom. Now, all I have to do is prime and paint the window/door trim. Pretty exciting stuff considering we expected to be DONE with the house May 1st :-)

I must confess, the only reason the living room was finished so quickly this past week is because Matt and I bought a new TV, and it is being picked up on Friday. Granted, we don't have cable, but since we watch so many movies, I figured it was worth it...plus I have this little Legend of Zelda addiction...but that is another story...So much for trying to reduce what we have. I am happy with the purchase, but still feel a tad bit of guilt.

My garden is doing amazingly well! I have little tomatoes all over my many many plants...and I have one mighty fine green pepper which appears to double in size everyday. I think this weekend I might pick it...Matt wants me to wait until it is "as big as the ones at the grocery store," but I don't know if I can wait that long. My other 2 pepper plants are not doing as well as the green pepper one. Neither of them have any fruit, but lot's of little flowers, so I am hopeful that something will come of it. I will have to take some more pictures...The upstairs deck is starting to get a little crowded...

Having the 4th on a Wednesday really through off my whole week! All day yesterday I thought it was Saturday, but now I have to go back to work for 2 more days...I can't wait for the end of the month when I can have an entire week of vacation...yay!

One Local Summer Week 2

Here it is week 2 for One Local Summer. I am having so much fun with this challenge! And actually, I am trying to eat mainly local food...of course there are a lot of ingredients that are still not really local, but I am paying a lot more attention to labels, and asking a lot more questions. It definitely pays to be an informed consumer, especially with all the recalls going on...toothpaste? What?!

This week I roasted my first chicken. It's funny because I absolutely love to cook, and I love making homemade meals, but I never make normal family meals, ie the meals my mom used to make for us. Instead I do a lot of mexican, a lot of thai, anything and everything spicy. But, roasting a chicken seemed to be the perfect fit for this week, since I had an organic chicken from Snafu Acres in the freezer, and because Maine decided it was fall instead of summer ;-) A little heat in the house can't hurt!

Along with the roasted chicken I made potato salad. I was able to get some potatoes from Denis at Long Meadow Farm, in West Gardiner, and eggs were also from Snafu Acres. And thanks to Wendy for posting on her site that Cains Mayo is from Mass...I'll take it! I did put in some non local celery, but wasn't thinking about it at the time. Just chopped, dropped...and then realized. But, I am going to just go with it this week. Does celery grow in Maine? And to round out our dish, I bought a ton of peas at the farmer's market this past weekend and shelled them right before dinner...yum!

Breakdown as follows:

Organic chicken - Snafu Acres, Monmouth 15 miles
Organic Potatoes - Long Meadow Farm 3 miles
Free Range eggs - Snafu Acres, Monmouth 15 miles
Cain's Mayo - Ayer, MA 163 miles
Organic peas - I can't remember what this farm was called...but they are 21 miles

Non-Local:

Celery - the package says Chelsea MA, which isn't too far off, but who knows where the celery actually came from...

Matt wanted me to take a picture of him with the chicken...of course we had already started carving it at this point...what a goofball


Here is a lovely picture of our meal...I still need to work on the garnish :-)


And for dessert...the remainder of our strawberries...man...I went through those pretty fast! Oh! And the strawberries are about 17 miles away from a pick your own farm. Fun!

strawberries part 2!

Well, today has been extremely eventful. I was able to get a ton of stuff at the farmers market, which I am always happy about, and also got all of my many pounds of strawberries processed. Here is the breakdown:

4 quarts whole strawberries in the freezer (I love smoothies, pop a couple strawberries some oj a banana and some plain nonfat yogurt...yum!)
3 quarts sliced strawberries in sugar, also in the freezer
3 pints sliced strawberries in syrup, again, in the freezer
18 pints of strawberry jam, on my counter hanging out
1 big bowl of fresh strawberries left, which will be used for strawberry shortcake tomorrow (my mom's b-day) and for snacking the rest of the week.

And to top it all off?! My husband is cleaning up because I have been working hard all day :-) Love him!

strawberries!

Yay for strawberry picking!

container garden update

OK, so here it is the end of June and my container garden has taken over the upstairs deck. I love it! I don't have anything that I can eat yet, but I feel by the end of the summer I am going to have more than enough tomatoes, cukes and peppers to do whatever canning I attempt :-) I am so excited about how well they are doing, and I am just praying that whatever I am doing keeps working. Actually, I must confess, all I am doing is watering the plants. I think that because they are in direct sunlight all day long is what really works for them, and being on an upstairs deck away from any pests...and woodchucks (we have a lovely family living next door) also helps :-)


My little herb experiment is working out quite nicely as well. I have plenty of basil, parsley, and cilantro. I end up picking the basil every couple days and then making paninis or this fresh tomato sauce: chopped tomatoes, garlic, basil, mushrooms, mozzarella cheese cubed, olive oil and salt. I like to heat it in the microwave a bit to get the cheese to melt some, and then I eat it plain. Matt puts it over his pasta, and it is sooooo good :-) I did make some guacamole the other day with our cilantro and I couldn't get over how amazing it smelled! I love the smell of freshly cut herbs!


So here are some pictures, they didn't come out great, but it gives you all an idea of how my container garden experiment is going :-)



my first green pepper!



Roma tomato plant...I think anyways...long and skinny looks like a roma to me :-)



My pepper plants being taken over by cucumbers. I didn't get the memo about spacing requirements for planting a garden :-/



All the herbs seemed to grow towards one side of the pot...and I thought I planted them in the middle...oh well, they still taste yummy!

Tomato plants

Some more tomato plants...I planted a lot of tomatoes :-)

My first cherry tomato, can you see it? It's like the size of a pea or something...