When vegetable gardeners get too busy, food goes to waste.

From Aug. 14 to Aug 19 I did not set foot in the vegetable garden. I slept home every night and ate a few meals in our house, but had no free time.

The result was a lot of too-big-to-eat zucchini and cucumbers, dropped peaches that were never rescued and similar gone-by produce.

The tomatoes are slowly coming in. We have eaten about four Siletz, an early large tomato. While Nancy and I were having in sandwiches for lunch, she said that it is not the best-tasting tomato she has ever had. But we agree that it is good, and better than anything else we have right now.

I picked some smaller tomatoes which turned out to be Eva Purple Ball, an heirloom variety. These are tennis-ball size, and they are a dark pink rather than a true red, and I have no idea why it has the color purple in its name. They have been quite tasty with our sandwiches at lunch. Our Sprite grape tomatoes are ripening well, taste OK and have a firm texture. The cherry tomatoes we are growing, Gardener's Delight, have been cracking before they ripen, which is disappointing.

The Big Zac, which we grew last year and was late then as well, and First Prize, which is supposed to take 75 days, have produced no ripe fruit as yet.

I am hoping to eat peaches soon. I picked up all the drops before coming to work and hope some of them will be soft enough to eat by the time I have my breakfast cereal. But often they go from too hard to rotten without ever reaching ripe. I keep checking the ones on the tree and they aren't ripe yet. Maybe soon.

This weekend we will be mostly at home. Maybe we can spend some more time with the the vegetables. And with the sun shining and temperatures getting into the high 70s, maybe more fruits and vegetables will ripen.

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