LOOK!!!  We have a few green striped Cushaw squashes growing.  The squashes are little now, but one year we got one that weighed 12 pounds!!!  It was fabulous.  I’m hoping that these grow that big.  I’ll let you know.

 

The vines are also quite long, reaching to 10 feet.  So they live up in the garden with the North Georgia Candy Roasters, where they have lots of room to sprawl.  

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

Several of our neighbors have hung flag buntings on their fences.  They look so nice for the Fourth of July.

 

There are also two on the gates at the entrance to the neighborhood, but I couldn’t get a picture of them, because the gates close at 7 pm, and we are always safe at home by then.  

 

I hope your Fourth of July is safe and happy.  

 

 

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!!

 

 

 

I thought you’d also like to see Nancy’s Crocosmia.  The leaves look a lot like iris, but the flowers are more like freesia, in that they bloom from the top to the tip on long spikes.  Each spike is about 2 feet tall, and the flowers open up a few at a time.  

 

And they are this gorgeous RED!!!  Really eye-catching.  

 

The deer love them too, so Jim sprays that stinky deer repellent every few days.  So I can’t really tell if they smell good naturally, but I do know that they smell of putrescent egg solids now.

 

Good thing they are pretty.

 

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

 

 

Our friends’ Hypericum is blooming.  Aren’t these flowers pretty?  Each one is about 2 1/2 inches across, and the bush is covered in them.  

 

Their plants are low growing bushes, and full of flowers and flower buds.  Of course the deer love it, as you can see examples of deer “nibblage.”  But each time they bite off the end of a branch, two more little branches grow back.  So this bush just keeps getting bushier.  

 

I’ve even seen it used in landscape plantings at interstate rest areas in Virginia and North Carolina.  

 

Hypericum is also called St. John’s Wort, and has been used since the times of the ancient Greeks.  Herbalists still employ extracts from St. John’s Wort to treat bruises, skin irritations, and other wounds.  It has long been thought to have soothing properties, making it useful in the treating of wounds.  

 

I wouldn’t suggest using it medicinally, unless you really know how to prepare and use the plant parts.  Which I don’t, but I do love seeing it in bloom.  I guess that’s part of their soothing property:  making us smile.

 

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

Our Bee Balm is blooming!!!  It is about 4 feet tall and 6 feet wide.  And it really is this color!!!

 

Bee Balm is in the genus Monarda, the same genus as Oswego Tea.  But Oswego Tea is Monarda didyma and has bright RED flowers, and our Bee Balm is Monarda fistulosa, with its lavender flowers.  The flowers and the leaves are edible, and quite aromatic.  We love to use them on top of salads, because they are so pretty.

 

Another great thing, besides being so pretty, is that Monarda attracts butterflies, bumble bees, and hummingbirds to the garden.  We love the pollinators who visit our garden.

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

We have also started picking zucchini.  

 

This year we are growing two different kinds of zucchini, both heirloom varieties.  Heirloom means that the seeds have been passed down through many generations of gardeners.  As opposed to hybrids, they are genetically stable, meaning that you can save seeds from the plants, replant them the next year, and get the same variety.  

 

The dark green ones are called Black Beauty, an heirloom from the 1920’s.  And the light green ones are called Gray Zucchini, also an heirloom.  The gray ones even have gray specks in the leaves.  The skin is super tender, which means that they bruise and scratch easily.  That’s why you don’t see these in the produce department of your local grocery store.  They are too easily damaged in transport.  

 

So if you want gray zucchini, you have to grow them yourself, or just happen to be at our house when we harvest, which is almost every day.   

 

I love trying new things in the garden.  Who knows what we’ll grow next year.

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

 

 

We have started picking blueberries.  There are more than last year, but not as many as we’ve had in the past.  One year there were so many blueberries (12 gallons!!!) we couldn’t eat them all.  We ate tons, gave tons to our friends, and still had to buy a small chest freezer to store them.

 

Blueberries are great frozen.  And they are so easy.  All you have to do is make sure all the stems are off, and freeze them flat in quart size bags.   It couldn’t be easier.  My sister calls them “blueberry popsicles.” 

 

When we have a ton, we like to dehydrate them, making blueberry raisins.  They take up less room in the freezer that way, and still work great for oatmeal and blueberry muffins.  

 

We are happy here at Crazybrook Farm.

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

Yep, it’s the truth.  The dill weed (the leaves) is nice enough, but this is why we grow dill in the garden.  For the fabulous heads of dill berries.  I love cutting them and putting a few in a vase.  These are in the kitchen where I can snip off a stem or two, and sprinkle the berries on our salad.  We put some in cole slaw the other day, and that was really good too.

 

This is the stage of dill that goes into dill pickles.  The leaves are too feathery, but the plump seeds work really well.  Dried seeds are ok too, but they aren’t quite as good as the berries.  

 

Don’t be fooled by the pretty green leaves in this vase;  it is a stem of lovage, not dill.  I like the two together.  Pretty, huh?

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

The Candy Roaster Squash is getting bigger.  That cradle that it’s resting on is 8 inches across.  

 

This is the biggest one of about ten squashes on my plants.

 

It is so exciting to check on them every day.  They must have loved all that rain we’ve had, because they are really growing.

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

On Saturday, I also cut the first of the Romanesco cauliflowers.  It didn’t seem to be getting bigger, and I didn’t want it to get old and tough while I waited, so I cut it.  

 

It measures almost 5 inches across.  The seed catalog said 7, but I’m not greedy.  Besides I planted 6 or 7 of them.  

 

Can’t wait to try it.  Curious, isn’t it?  Each one of those little spikes is like a baby cauliflower stem.

 

Maybe I will leave one in the garden to go to seed.  That should be interesting.

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!