Mom's Garden

Before these last few weeks of summer fade away, I must share some lovely summer adventures we've had.  A few weeks ago, Superking and I went out to visit my parents who live in the mountains of northern Virginia countryside.  They have about 10 acres of woods just above the beautiful flowing Shenandoah River.  My dad is an avid outdoorsman and has been in the building industry in one aspect or another for most of his life.  My mom is a country girl at heart. They designed and built their own house up there in their own little quiet paradise.

One of the things my mom loves to do is gardening.  And she's always had a knack for it too. I, on the other hand, have the Black Thumb of Death when it comes to all plants, be they fruit, veg, or flower, with the exception of weeds.  If it was acceptable to grow weeds and make them look nice, I would be the Queen.

Anywho...as my mom took us on a little tour of her garden, it was bursting with greens and reds and yellows everywhere we looked.  Just about anything you can imagine growing in a garden, it was there.  Tomatoes (so many tomatoes of all different kinds), cabbages, squash, carrots, strawberries, peppers of various kinds, herbs, cucumbers. They even tried to grow peanuts but they didn't turn out so well unfortunately.  But everything else was vibrant and colorful.

my mom being goofy

one of their dogs, Buddy or Bella?

And she doesn't use any kind of pesticides either. So it doesn't get much more local and organic than that!

For our lovely dinner we had with them, my mom used plenty of her yummy produce in our meal, including this delicious tomato salad.  Beautiful red and orange cherry tomatoes mixed with a tangy balsamic vinagrette and fresh herbs and chunks of creamy mozzarella cheese. It was sweet and tangy and juicy; a perfect companion to a good juicy steak hot off the grill.

We also had luscious strawberries stuffed with a marscapone cream cheese and dipped in chocolate for dessert.  I could've eaten the whole plate they were so yummy!

And before we left we stuffed our pockets with as many tomatoes (even green ones...another post to come) and peppers and squash and cucumbers and honey (yes they have their own beehive too...again another post to come) as we could carry away!  Can't wait to share some more recipes with you from Mom's Garden!!

beehive full of bees and fresh honey!!

 

Happy Summer!