This is Mike and Denice's Juniper.  It is a huge planting of Juniper.  I love seeing the blue berries.  

 

Did you know that some species of Juniper berries are used to flavor gin?  Interesting.  And some species of Juniper berries are used to flavor strong, or wild meats.  We have used Juniper berries in marinades, even for fish.  Juniper has an interesting taste, albeit not to everyone's liking.  Sometimes, we just add a little gin.

 

Before you go snitch some of Mike's Juniper berries, I suggest you look up recipes on HOW to identify the right kind of berries to use.  There are lots of different species of Juniper, so do the research if you want to make your own gin, or marinades.    

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

 

 

Look at these gorgeous tomatoes.  Did I tell you that I grew everything this year FROM SEEDS?  I know I did tell you, but it just makes me so happy.  I pinch myself every day, amazed that we were able to pull this off.

 

We will be busy this summer canning tomatoes and tomato sauce and salsa.  I'll take more pictures when they start ripening, when the dining room table is covered with tomatoes.  

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

 

 

I planted this bed of Thyme about 10 years ago.  Never really had much luck growing thyme in pots or other gardens, but something here just clicked.  

 

I'm bragging because it takes up a space about 3 feet by 2 feet.  That's a lot of thyme.  It looks dry and dull all winter, but then in the Spring it springs to life again, and is beautiful.

 

I harvest branches just before it blooms in Spring, and hang them upside down in the kitchen window.  When it's totally dry, I strip the branches and put all that glorious thyme in a jar.  I think dried thyme is so much easier to cook with than fresh.  Besides, when I'm cooking, I want it available to me, not out in the garden.  

 

We harvest oregano and sage and rosemary the same way:  pick it just before it blooms, hang it to dry, then put it into jars.  We haven't bought herbs for years!!!  

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

This is our row of Swiss Chard.  Grown from seeds!!  These are heirloom seeds, but I didn't collect and save them myself.  Chard takes two years to go to seed, and it's a little too tender to survive our winter.  I haven't ever saved seeds from Chard.  But a $2 pack of seeds lasts a few years.  

 

We planted about 6 or 7 plants this year, and that will be enough to get us through the summer.  We use the young leaves fresh in salads, and the bigger leaves we use like spinach in quiche and lasagna.  

 

Really, I am just happy to see it every morning when I walk in the garden.  It is SO pretty!!!

 

HAPPY  GARDENING!!!

 

I showed you Rosalie's wildflowers last summer, and they are doing it again.  She said she added a few seeds there on the left, but the rest came back from last year's planting.  A couple packages of Wildflower seeds!!  There are Zinnias, Nicotiana, Delphiniums, Cosmos, and Coreopsis.  Some are annuals, some perennials, such a great mix.  

 

Beautiful!!!  Go up to the top of Five Forks Drive and see for yourself.  

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

Look at all that DILL!!!  It is blooming now, and in another week it will go to (what I like to call) berries.  That's when the seeds are still green and soft enough to eat. When they do that, I usually bring in a few big blossom heads and put them in a vase.  A vase of green berry heads.  They look like fireworks to me. 

 

Behind the dill is the cucumber trellis, and the beautiful leeks.  More fireworks.  I LOVE my garden.

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

Look!!!  We're going to have cucumbers!!  I love this picture, showing the bumbler inside the flower, the tendrils hooked on the fence, and the baby cucumber.  

 

We plant heirloom seeds, because they produce true to their variety, unlike hybrids which sometimes revert to one or another of their parent plant characteristics.  

 

We've been growing this variety of Japanese Long cucumbers for quite a few years now.  I bought a package of seeds in 2011, and have been saving some each year.  Seeds only last a few years, so you have to refresh them. 

 

These cucumbers grow 18 to 24 inches long, and are always crisp and fresh.  Since they grow up the trellis, they hang down and grow straight, well, mostly.  Sometimes they get hung up in the chicken wire and get all curvy, but still fresh and delicious.  

 

I always plant too many plants, because I have the seeds and I have the space.  So when they start getting ripe, we are inundated with cucumbers.  That lasts about a month, so we eat lots of cucumbers, share lots of cucumbers, and make pickles.  Dill's my favorite.  OH!!  I need to show you the dill;  it's in the same area as the cucumbers.

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

 

 

This morning Jon was picking blueberries, and he thought he felt a little sprinkle.  He looked up and saw a rainbow.  He ran back to the house and tapped on the window for me to come out with my camera.

 

We don't usually see rainbows here.  Too many trees.  

 

We thought of our neighbors with a clearer view of the western sky, so I texted them:  Rainbow!!!  Look west.  

 

I got some pretty pics before it faded, but this one came from Lisa.  WOW!!!

 

HAPPY TUESDAY!!!

 

Patty's Balloon flower is blooming.  She told me that she planted it several years ago, and it comes back every summer.  Apparently it likes where it lives.    

 

It's easy to see why it got the name Balloon flower:  the unopened flower buds are puffy just before they bloom.  They look like little balloons, full of air.  I've read that they come in pink, white, and this luscious purple.  

 

Platycodon is native to East Asia (China, Korea, Japan, and the Russian Far East.)  It  is hardy down to 5 degrees F, so it can be planted here, and survive our winters.  It is probably readily available in our local garden centers.

 

It really is cute;  go see it in bloom.   

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

 

 

Bill and Kelly's Yucca is in bloom.  Aren't the flowers pretty against the Leland Cypress backdrop?  

It is Yucca filamentosa.  There are threads on the edges of the leaves: filaments.  If you enlarge the picture, you can see them.  My books say that Yucca filamentosa is native to the desert Southwest, but it has adapted itself to the Appalachian mountains too.  I'm pretty sure Joel planted this one years ago;  it doesn't look native in this spot.  And this is the kind of plants he liked.  

 

Siri told me that Yucca is the state flower of New Mexico.  ;D   

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!