This is Violet's other Hibiscus.  Each flower is as big as a dinner plate.  They are fabulous!!  The plant is in a huge pot on the deck, and about a dozen blossoms open every day.  

 

It is a tropical plant, and doesn't survive our winters outside.  But she cuts them all the way back and puts them in her garage attic.  She told me that she gives them a little water every couple weeks.  And they do this every year in the summer.

 

 

FABULOUS!!!

 

This is my echinacea.  It grows so easily from seeds.  Just clip off the flower head, throw it on the ground, and wait a couple years.  Here's the thing about perennials:  the first year they sleep, the second year they creep, and the third year they leap.  So you have to wait a bit, but once they get going, they grow beautifully year after year.

 

Echinacea is beautiful through several seasons:  blooming all summer, then providing food for the birds into the fall.  And we love to stick the dried seed pods into our flower pots in winter to keep the deer from eating our pansies.  Sometimes it works.

 

Try growing echinacea in your garden.  You will be glad you did.  

 

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

The Echinacea is back!!!!  Two years ago the deer devoured it, so we put up a fence and a gate.  And this year it has come back.  There is echinacea from our front porch entrance, all the way down the stairs to the basement.  It is gorgeous!!!!

 

I am so happy.  I don't love the fence, but everybody loves the echinacea, so it's worth it.

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

My friends have this beautiful Hibiscus in a big pot on their porch.  It is fabulous.

 

Every day it bursts into bloom.  You can see the new flowers, and the older ones from yesterday.  It is so cheerful that we can't help but smile when we walk by and see it in bloom.  Thank you!!!!

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

 

 

These are just two of about a hundred squash blossoms in the garden.  The bees love them.  So do I!!!

 

These are butternut squash blossoms, and they are about 8 inches across.  No, really!!!  

 

The blossoms are edible, and delicious stuffed with rice and vegetables.  It takes a bit of work to harvest, stuff, and cook them, but well worth the effort.  They are delicate and beautiful.  Another perk from having your own garden.  

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

I took out the old arugula, and threw some new seeds in the same bed, watered and waited.  And this is what I got in just three days!!!  We get several plantings every year in this bed.  We call it the arugula bed, but the truth is:  there are all kinds of things growing in here.  This year we had a sunflower that planted itself, and there is also echinacea, morning glory, chickweed, and Columbine growing here.  So, not just arugula, but mostly arugula.  I love it.

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

These are chanterelle mushrooms that I picked from our yard.  They are growing down near the apple trees, and all around.  There are so many, I was able to just harvest the clean-ish ones.  They can be really hard to get clean sometimes, so I try to stay in the grassy areas, rather than the dirt and rocks.  

 

Chanterelles come up every year around the Fourth of July, especially if we've had a bunch of rain.  This year they have been especially prolific.  Patty and I have been out a few times collecting them.  We know all the best spots.

 

Harvesting mushrooms can be a risky business if you don't know what you are looking for or looking at.  Please don't use my picture for identification purposes;  get a good mushroom guide, or find somebody who knows about mushrooms.  They can be delicious, or deadly;  and who wants to find that out the hard way?  Not I.  

 

HAPPY SUMMER!!!

 

Look how pretty the beets are this year.  I guess they loved all that rain.  The greens are looking great too.  Sometimes, they get a bit bedraggled, but so far they are doing well.  

 

Oh, don't mind that weed in the front.  It is a hickory tree growing from one of the two zillion hickory nuts that fall into the garden every year.  I didn't see it until I looked at this picture.  Guess I better go pull it out.  

 

Maybe I will cut some beet greens too for supper.  

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

This is what we do with all those blueberries.  We make blueberry ice cream.  We added a little lemon zest and some lemon juice, and voila!!!  Blueberry ice cream.  You can do it too.  It's in the recipe section.  The recipe is for peach ice cream, but just use 4 quarts of blueberries, lemon zest and a little lemon juice.  It is not only beautiful;  it is tasty too.

 

 

HAPPY SUMMER!!!

 

Look at all the apples on the Golden Delicious branch.  This tree was grafted with three different apple varieties.  Since apple trees need cross pollination to produce apples, the grower took scions from Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, and one other variety, and grafted them onto a strong root stock.  As the tree grows, each of the three major branches cross pollinate, and produce its own kind of apples.  This way we only had to buy one tree, rather than two or more.  And we get three different kinds of apples.  Pretty cool, huh?

 

Oh, the flashing around the trunk?  That is to keep the raccoons, possums, and squirrels from swiping all of our apples.  Not too pretty, but it works.  

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!