Kip and Marcie, chosen by Storey to do the fill in pics from this summer, were here on a hot, muggy and occasionally showery (but ultimately perfect) half day on Tuesday. I drove to their Richmond studio for an additional day of photography on Wednesday, and was delighted to meet Carolyn from Storey. It was all great fun (in an odd twist, I didn't get to taste a single tomato....that particular task was handled by the Richmond bunch yesterday - I eagerly await their opinions!).
I remain on call to provide any long distance opinions on which tomato for which category, color definitions, and the best orientation for slicing. Mainly, I am taking a big, deep breath of relief. Except for some final editing, a few additions and corrections and modifying some picture captioning, my attention turns from the book to dealing with our harvest - yesterday I picked an awful lot of gorgeous eggplant, then did a sweep of the tomato plants and found quite a lot going on there as well. The two pics below speak for themselves.
I want to thank those garden friends who pitched in when needed - Nancy and Reitzel came through with Giant Syrian, Cherokee Green and Halladay's Mortgage Lifter....Lee's, Linda Johnson, and Wise Produce vendors at the Raleigh Farmers Market, along with various vendors at the Chapel Hill market, were the source of additional varieties that augmented or reinforced my own efforts.