A Big Idea

What do you do with a tomato this big? You chop it up to see how much you really have . . .

You stand a moment, amazed that one tomato could yield 2 cups of chopped tomato. Then you add it to other chopped up tomatoes from your garden to make a massive bowl of colorful bruschetta.

Throw in some minced fresh parsley, oregano, and basil from the herb garden, some fresh pressed garlic, a bit of olive oil and balsamic vinegar and you're set for days.

It's this sort of summer "cooking"—as well as the prospect of canning—that has me planning for a backyard garden overhaul this fall. I want to grow far more vegetables, but I have a very small backyard with lots of shade, hard clay soil, and a poisonous black walnut tree lurking at the back fence. What's a girl to do? Put on her thinking cap and improvise! Make it work!

See, I like working in the yard and I need some good hard labor to kick start my weight loss once more. Plus I love the idea of feeding my family fresh, ripe, tasty produce that has never been tainted with pesticides, shipped in trucks that cough exhaust into the air, or handled at the store by some woman who sneezed into her hand and then felt for the ripest tomato, leaving a nice infected one behind for me.

To that end, I will soon be moving perennials, donating some plants to our church gardens, and hauling rocks. I'll be measuring and buying lumber. I'll be adding compost and breaking up soil. All this so that in the spring I have lovely tiered raised beds in which to plant lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, peppers, beans, asparagus, zucchini, acorn squash, and maybe even corn. I huge undertaking? Yes. But one with a potentially very satisfying result.

So come cooler weather, I'll be working on this:

Wish me luck!