Pick your own at home.

It's a big day around here. I finally picked my first vegetables: two cucumbers, an eggplant, and two banana peppers. I immediately made lunch, piling slices of cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, and basil on top of a brie-like goat cheese called Cave Spring made by Bonnie Blue Farm, an artisan

cheese-maker from Waynesboro, Tennessee. The bread was from local baker Shoaf's Loaf, and the tomatoes were from my CSA, so my lunch was locavore heaven.

For dinner, I tossed pasta with my home-grown, homemade pesto and topped it with a sauteed mixture of shallots, tomatoes, olives, and the tiny eggplant I grew. Tony, who typically thinks my vegetarian meals are a little lackluster, was full of praise.

My cucumbers were the biggest surprise. Apparently, I have two different cucumber plants. One is Japanese soyu (long and narrow); the other is the traditional slicing cucumber we know and love (short and fat). You would never know the difference between the plants until you saw the cucumbers growing.

So which is better? Long and narrow or short and fat? (I know you are smiling right now.) I liked the slicing cucumber, because it's sweeter.