Loving the color red.

So how about these tomatoes I picked this weekend? Our plants haven't been as productive as I hoped (blame that damn heat!), but they sure do taste great.

Basil cornbread. Yum.

It's a little hard to admit this, but sometimes (actually, more than sometimes) the first thought I have in the morning is, What am I going to make today? Lately, I've been thinking about the basil cornbread recipe I spied earlier in the summer in Bon Appetit. So I made it this week with basil from the garden.

I doubled the amount of basil because I always double the basil in recipes, and that change was a good thing. I've been making cornbread for many years, but this is the best recipe I've ever used. It's a little complicated: You pulse cold, diced butter in the food processor a la pie crust, but it is so worth the trouble. We ate the cornbread with soup, for breakfast with jam, and as the bottom layer to Tony's grilled veggie fajitas. Delicious!

Hide and seek.

By the time I saw the first cantaloupe in the garden, it looked like a cantaloupe. I never saw the fruit developing, and now I know why.

Yesterday, I spied five more melons: a small bulb growing from one of the vine's flowers, and others, about the size of an orange, that were a lovely shade of green. They blended seamlessly into the vine's leaves.

I couldn't keep from smiling, seeing this happy example of how nature protects its young.

Almost ready to pick.

Here's my first beefsteak tomato, still wet from a few minutes of rain. I was hoping for a downfall, but no luck. Just cloud cover and headache weather.

As most gardeners in Memphis know, it's been a rough summer for tomatoes. The heat has dried up the tomato blossoms before they can develop. Even my CSA share from Whitton Farms has been woefully light on summer's favorite fruit.

Fortunately, I have about two dozen beefsteaks on the vines, plus many cherry tomatoes. The Roma's: not looking so good.

I'm a butterfly killer: Part two.

On Monday at lunch, Susan plopped down her camera. I want to show you my nature photography, she said (or something along those lines).

So what to my wondering eyes should appear? Photographs of two beautiful butterflies (one yellow, one blue) who spent all weekend snacking on Susan's flowering shrubs.

Did I mention how beautiful they were? Or that they were the size of Susan's hand? Did I mention how I will never, ever again mistake a hornworm for a caterpillar?

Cantaloupe feast on Fair Meadow.

Yesterday, after work, I checked on my cantaloupe and was aghast to see several small slits radiating from where the melon joins the stalk. OMG, I said to Griffin. I've let the cantaloupe get overripe.

So after our walk, I knocked on the door of my young garden helpers (I'd promised they could pick the melon) to tell them, "It's time!" They responded with the enthusiasm I'd been counting on: They dashed across the street, tremendously excited.

We carried the cantaloupe inside, where their dad let Forest use a butcher knife to cut the melon in half. (I was a little worried, but Forest sliced like a pro.) After scooping out the seeds and cutting the melon into bite-sized pieces, Lee asked the boys, "Thumbs up or thumbs down?"

Davis raised his thumb up immediately and didn't say a word, because his mouth was full of cantaloupe. Forest was more measured in his response. "I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it," he said. (I'm thinking this kid should be an attorney.)

Reluctantly, I had to agree with Forest. I loved the melon because we grew it, but it didn't have the overly sweet taste I associate with perfect cantaloupe. I'm thinking this heirloom variety is unfamiliar (the flesh of the melon is a light tangerine, not orange) or perhaps letting it get too ripe zapped a bit of its sweetness.

Hard fact: I'm a butterfly killer.

The other day, on my early morning (okay, it was almost 10 a.m.) check of the herbs, I spotted this beautiful creature on top of my parsley. She was hungry as well as lovely. There wasn't a parsley leaf left on the plant. I was furious.


The nearby dill plant was equally defrocked.

Since I'd been reading about hornworms, I flew into a frenzy. "Take a picture of this thing before I smash it," I snapped at Tony. His response: "You're crazy." (He says that to me a lot.)

So I took the photo myself, and then stepped on the...well, caterpillar. In my fury, I overlooked the fact that hornworms eat tomatoes. Caterpillars, I now know, love parsley and dill. In fact, people plant these herbs to attract butterflies to their gardens.

Now, I'm obsessing about what type of butterfly I smashed. If you know, please tell me so I can lay this misdeed to rest.