You Grow Girl™

I bought a new plant book the other day. It's a book I've been thinking about for a while but had hesitated on due to the price (I'm an extremely guilty shopper). The book is called "Herbal: The Essential Guide to Herbs for Living" by Deni Bown and is probably the best book on herbs I have ever seen. As I've said in the past, I'm very snobby about books and nearly always insist a book look as good as the contents. I try to keep an open mind and try not to let bad design disuade me from picking up something that could very well turn out to be life changing (or at least really good) but it's a hard habit to break.

I checked and double-checked, looking around for books that might be better than this book and I just didn't find any. Most herb books have lots of information on harvesting, drying and preparing herbs while the actual history, or general information suffers. I don't need a book like that. I have enough of those to pretty much cover all the bases. I know how to make a tincture, infusion or whatnot if need be. There are lots of other herb books out there that have good information, but no photos. I hate that. Simple line drawings just don't cut it when I'm trying to make an accurate identification.

So in the end I bought the book. And it is a pretty book. It has photos of every plant, beautiful botanical illustrations, nice design, and lots of useful information. Probably the thing I like the most about the book is the fact that it covers history. It doesn't tell me how to grow the plant, but it does contain a "Note to Gardeners" with every entry.

This morning when I went outside to water the plants I noticed there was a very loud cicada sound. It was so ear piercing I was sure the insect had to be somewhere on the deck. Sure enough I found it on the side of the gazebo top. Very exciting! Cicadas are one of my absolute favourite insects next to praying mantids and seeing as they live most of their adult life high up in the trees it's a real treat (did I just use those words?) to see one. It took off, but not before I got a quick snap with my digicam.

The Purple Prince tomatoes are starting to ripen. We actually ate one yesterday because it was nearly ripe but had split due to the rain we had the other day. Even though it wasn't fully ripe, it was still REALLY good. My neighbour commented that it was probably the best tomato she had ever tasted. I just tore it in half with my hands and we ate it plain out there on the deck with nothing on it. I can't wait until the first one is actually fully ripe.

Maybe someone could enlighten me on this but shouldn't Purple Prince tomatoes be purple? Mine looks distinctly orange but I'm going to assume that at some point the colour will deepen.

UPDATE: The cicada came back that evening. We heard it buzzing around near the deck and then went inside. A few minutes later we heard a very loud buzzing sound coming from the front room and upon investigating discovered that the cat had caught the cicada, brought it inside, and was wrestling with it on the floor. We caught it, put it outside and it was fine. The next day it came back again but the cat didn't get it that time. Do cicadas leave the trees and fly around at this time of year? I've never seen it happen but on another occassion over the weekend, I saw one flying about.