From My Mothers Garden, Chapter 1.

Joe and I took an afternoon trip to Damascus to visit my mother. We had lunch and discussed life in general.

I made pork and vegetable dumplings with rice, corn and a salad. While preparing the salad my mother said, "you brought tomatoes with you? Boy, you know my tomatoes are coming in nice!"

"Really?" I said, and my mom had to take me out to see.

She was right, some were large and some were small. Cherry tomatoes and juicy round red and ripe tomatoes. I knew my mother has always had a green thumb but I was very impressed. She had even grown a bush of basil and a sweet pepper plant directly beside one another. All of this was in the front of her yard, surrounding the porch and the side of the house. She was also in the process of growing some leafy vegetables; buttered lettuce, collard greens and my new favorite, swiss chard.

In this moment two things came to me:

1) I better go check on those pot stickers on the stove, my mother would never forgive me for burning down her kitchen.

2) With all of these great home grown vegetables I could not only cut the costs on some select groceries but it would also give me something to blog about...and so I have.