As okra goes, I stunk at growing it this year.  I kept waiting too long to pick it and ended up with a whole bunch of brown, hard seed pods.  So I have a lot of seeds…but did I wait long enough to remove them, or should I have let them completely die off on the plant?  Will they be useable?

Guess I’ll be back to frozen okra when I need it.  Does anyone ever see it fresh anywhere?  At Sprouts?  Anyone?

Meanwhile – I was noting the okra leaf…haven’t I seen something like that somewhere before? Oh, yes: everywhere in Colorado!!!

In other {GARDEN} news~

What is the deal with the beefsteak tomatoes?  Are they really like twins or triplets and sometimes even like quardruplets that just join together so we can beam over our 2-pound blushers?  I have got these gigantic beefsteaks on the vine, heavy, juicy and so deliciousssssssssss!  Yes, I am scheduling regular BLTs at this time in my life!

Does anyone know if you can eat the leaves of the sweet potato vine – especially if they are completely hogging up all the room in all of my flower pots?

Down to the last of the gargantuan Brussel’s Sprouts leaves.  Washing two big sink-loads as we speak, which will give me space for Chinese Cabbage for the fall garden!  I popped some seeds in 2 days ago and in this heat, they have already germinated!  Perfect!

Now-these leaves – You can stir fry them, use them in a fritata, cook them the same way you would cabbage or broccoli or kale, you can use them as a wrap for a crab filling, make a sausage soup, roast them with garlic or make flavored, baked chips out of them.  I am sharing these ideas for my kids because everybody is going home with some Brussels’ leaves!  :)

Do you know what I love most about this time of year?  It’s ripe.

When I stepped outside this morning, the air just smelled ripe.  Everything tastes better, all the colors are richer and the garden is reaching its’ intended glory.  This is why I planted and weeded and fed and tended.  For now.  The world is heavy with ripened fruit…