In a jam

I bought some peaches and apricots Saturday at the market. The peaches I wasn't so impressed with; even though they seemed pretty ripe, many of them actually were green with a few overripe spots.

The apricots weren't much better; I had to choose carefully at the store so that they wouldn't be rotten by today, but once again, I was fooled - they had some overripe spots, but overall, they weren't ripe. The quality of fruits and vegetables that aren't grown locally is a crapshoot, and usually, it takes almost a week (sometimes more) for them to ripen on the inside. But any overripe spots on the outside are moldy by that time. And I don't eat fruit with mold anywhere on it. So you have to choose carefully, and I was jonesing so badly for peaches and apricots that I didn't exercise my usual highly discriminating taste, instead opting for fruit that felt near-ripe. Bad call. But I still wound up with enough fruit for a pint jar of jam, so I made it up. The flavor was quite good - better than you'd buy in any store.



Let me just say that even though making a single pint of jam was a bit of a pain, making the single pint was a lot easier than making the sixteen pints I made a couple of weeks ago when we went strawberry picking. That was just crazy.



Here are the red astilbe that I bought at the half-price sale last week. I love them!



My beautiful Macarena gladiolas bloomed this week. They are a great deep shade of purple - this photo doesn't do them justice, really.



A nice accompaniment to the Macarena glads are these pink and white ones.



Here's a closer view.



These Gingerland caladium look great in the backyard.



These Florida Cardinal caladium were the perfect thing to complement the front walk to the house.



The tomatoes are coming along. These Mortgage Lifters have a few weeks to go before they are ripe, but the cherry tomatoes are ripening now and should be ready in a day or two.



These Big Beef tomatoes are looking nice, too.