Harvest time always is busy and plenty. One fruit or vegetable follows another, and this week alone, we froze plumbs and figs, made fig preserve and plum/rose jelly, froze blackberries and brought in the garlic.

The tomatoes are ripening on the vines and are deliciously sweet. Even more sweet are the ground cherries, a kind of tomato that grows--like tomatillo which we harvest right

now--in a husk. You often find those ground cherries in upscale restaurants on the desserts.

Today Sylve harvested purple bush beans--they turn green upon blanching or cooking--green pole beans; she also wanted plum jam with rose petals. So I harvested some yellow plums and she brought in some fragrant rose petals.

While making dinner, I also prepared the plum jam, which was more like a jelly because of the juiciness of the plums. I didn't even add the 1 1/4 cup (300 mL) water that the recipe called for.

For dinner I made risotto con ceci (risotto with chickpeas, onions, garlic, celery, all from our garden) and I served it with 3 kinds of tomatoes, just picked.

This year, we have 9 varieties of tomatoes plus tomatillos and ground cherries. This is a salad from 4 kinds of tomatoes plus tomatilloes and ground cherries, seasoned with fresh basil leaves, walla walla sweet onions and garlic, plus plenty of olive oil.