Corn - Mandan Bride

D picked the Mandan Bride corn a few days ago.

The guinea fowl had been having a wonderful time in the cornfield, taking dustbaths, and knocking down the stalks, and generally making a mess.

It was time. . .

Aren't the kernels beautiful!

There is only one ear of red.

Several ears of blue.

The variegated one is nice, too.

They are now strung on wire, hanging on the porch to dry.

There are a few more that are not quite ready.

We'll pick them next week.

Tomatoes have started!

This morning we picked the first Howard German tomatoes.

This evening we added two more:

Cherokee Purple and Golden Queen.

They are heirloom tomatoes, and the flavors are fantastic.

Our tomatoes are grown from seed we have saved.

(Seeds for many are available from SeedSavers Exchange.)

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It's time for the summertime favorite:

Raw Tomato Sauce for pasta.

Tastes best over buttered angel hair spaghetti or linguini.

The ingredients:

Tomatoes

Basil

Parsley

Garlic

Pepper

Olive oil

Serve at room temperature over buttered pasta.

Mandan Bride

D planted a vintage corn.
It comes from the Mandan Indians of Minnesota and North Dakota.

The plan is to dry it and to grind it up for the chickens.
You may notice a nibble. I decided to taste it.
It is not at all sweet. It is dry and mealy.
It almost tastes like corn meal already.

First Tomato!

Hooray! The first tomatoes!
These are Howard German, a paste tomato.
Delicious!

These are the first tomatoes in TWO YEARS!

Last year, all 35 plants were destroyed by late blight.

It had been a very wet, cool summer.

This summer is perfect - warm, sunny, just enough rain.

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On another note:

Tommy has discovered that the orchard is full of "balls" to play fetch with,

and you can eat them, too.

So at 5:30 this morning, he and D were playing.

Needless to say, I missed it!