Whiteley Creek Homestead

I so look forward to my weekly 3-mile trek to Brainerd's Farmer's Market. Although there is slight duplication in products offered, it's amazing that what it lacks in number of vendors, it makes up in variety.   

Today I came home with a collection of freshly-picked leafy greens including Swiss chard with stems of lime green and red… so pretty that I recut the stem bottoms and placed them in a glass of water for a porch table bouquet until I use them to make "Healthy Swiss Chard Tuna Salad", a recipe I ran across on In My Kitchen Garden… a very informative food and gardening blog. I also couldn't resist the bright green and purple curly lettuce, bibb lettuce (a.k.a. butterhead), and a leaf lettuce mixture. Since the lettuce in my garden doesn't come close to resembling this lettuce's mature size, I was feeling quite inadequate about my gardening skills until I learned the farmers utilize greenhouses to get a headstart on the growing season. Do whatever you gotta do, I say… just keep these greens coming.

The willy nilly growth of this thumbergias, with its delicate tendrils reaching out to curl themselves around the closest object… well, what's not to love about it? I just had to have it to hang from my front porch roof.