How Time Does Fly...

Especially when you are having fun. I always seem to get lost on this blog when the summer comes- too much to do, not enough pictures, you name it :)
I thought instead, that I might just share some photos :)

My pomegranates, grown in my garden :)

Pineapple Sage.

Homegrown peanuts.

Homegrown fig.

A bee digging holes to lay their eggs in... you can see the beginning of a former test hole on the left :)

Milkweed fluff.

The three stages of an Eastern Blue Swallowtail Butterfly.

Lavender.

Rosehips from the garden.

Our Halloween pumpkin... face designed by Rebel :)

First Harvest

It's that time again! Lettuces have been picked, peas and radishes have produced, and the first tomatoes are on the vine!!

Last Thursday, we picked our English peas. Virginia is a pretty hot summer climate, so we really only get a couple of weeks tops of peas being produced in the springtime. This year, I got about a week's worth :o Never mind... I shared the joy of picking these with the kids:


And shelling them into these:


Which we ate raw because they are so SWEET! YUMMY! Their life is pretty much over now, what with the weather getting into the upper 80's and 90's (from around 28 through 34 degrees C). Peas find it hard to tolerate that range!

Our garden is abounding in roses, and has been the entire month :)

This is the Virginia rose, discovered in the 17th century by the colonists. It has a sweet, very light fragrance, and the bumblebees were going mad over it this morning!

These small things were popping up all over our circle recently... ladies and gentlemen, we have here a Shirley Poppy. They are relatives of the red corn poppy you see... same poppy, new cultivar. Quite beautiful!
I am hoping to see the monarch caterpillars soon. Our milkweed relative, Pleurisy root, is blooming.

This is a stunning, firey orange. I planted this from a root many years ago, and it still pops up every year. Sometimes the monarchs find it. Sometimes they dont!

This fellow, at about 1 3/4 inches long, was a scary find on the side of our house a few weeks back. The photo is not great because in direct sun I can barely see the screen to tell, but I can tell you that he is a "Big eyed Click Beetle".

They are not really eyes of course, just markings on the thorax. He was quite alarming at first, but when we found out that the adults apparently eat very little, we decided to like him :)

Finally, my pride and joy.

This absolutely stunning, intense orange bloom is a pomegranate. I got hold of a pomegranate bush some years back, at colonial Williamsburg. I wanted one because they had one... in spring it was covered with blooms this colour. In autumn it is covered with fruit this colour. I don't know if mine will make it to the fruit bearing stage... local wildlife will insist on denuding our trees of fruit, BUT I really liked it for the blooms anyway :) If I get a fruit, thats just an added bonus!
This is the very first year it has bloomed for me, so I am extra excited about it!

I added a few things to the garden recently... some basil and dill, and some parsley. Today I pulled up a 'weed' from our peonies, before realising it was a volunteer squash. I transplanted it in the hope it would survive ;)
My green beans just suddenly sprouted, and one or two navy beans did too. (Those were an experiment ;)).
Lots of things are growing, though not as many as I would have hoped, but you win some, you lose some! I had a terrible time with the pumpkins... all of which did not want to come up. I may try once more, and hope for the best!

Happy Gardening!

First Harvest

Leastwise, the first one we got around to actually EATING ;) Technically we could have harvested Swiss Chard over a month ago and Sorrel two or more months ago!

The first harvest consisted of some lettuce and spinach leaves picked to make a wrap.


Since rebel is not so fond of lettuce, I gave him the spinach.

Mum, stop taking photos of me!!

Despite the look, he actually loved the wrap :) Which is a huge success, he is almost as picky as his Dad. He was very excited to have very fresh spinach ;)

M'Lady said the sauce was "too ficy" (too spicy), but she enjoyed the fresh harvest!

This is the lunch itself... a wrap, consisting of chickpea patties with a curry sauce and lettuce.
The patties and sauce recipes are found at the Taste of Home site (it is a subscriber only recipe unfortunately), although I used sour cream instead of yoghurt, as I was out of the latter.

Harvest Waning

Indeed, the season of plenty in my garden is drawing to a close. The corn died an unhappy death as we had another year of 'not-quiet-enough-rain' to keep it going. Of course I could have watered it, but I prefer nature to take it's course.
I did enjoy a couple of peppers from my plants, but the tomatoes were just not happy campers this year!

In spite of that, we have been observing in the garden.
First there were the ants. Indeed, we did not have to go to the garden for this, as they were quite happy there in our house for a while, but we stopped that.
A day or two later, DH discovered these ant 'volcanoes' in the garden... a veritable city of them!

Then there are the baby birds which have been visiting the feeders. I managed to capture this mother and baby on top of our feeders... but excuse the blur, I had to do it through the window without disturbing her!
There were pawpaws ripening on our pawpaw trees this year.
See... I even have proof! But unfortunately, some bandit animal took them. Again. We never have yet managed to eat the pawpaws ourselves!
And the hummingbirds have been visiting, I swear. They often get close to us, they are very friendly... BUT they are SUPERFAST and I never have had my camera ready!
Soon the autumn season will be on us, and I have different plans this year... including the nature table. More about that another time... once I have started!

And more to harvest

Yes, this weekend was a harvest weekend. My onions' tops had fallen over, so I pulled them. And some of my beets... and the rest of my turnips! I realise that most of these could have grown a little longer, but you can call me impatient. I ate them for the vegetable part of my lunch... beets and turnips roasted in a little olive oil and salt, with an onion (not mine, I am letting them dry out a little). Yes Mum, I ate the beets... fresh are definitely better ;) In fact, I ate the beets and the beet greens... after all, that's what Swiss Chard is. Only mine was the real deal!

Then there were these:

The neighbour found them underneath his porch, and we believe that they might be snake eggs. I kind of hope they are really turtle eggs! I can stand a box turtle!
Then there was the fox that ran across the road in front of us, less than a mile from our house! He was an American Grey Fox... and looked a whole lot like this picture... only running ;)

Cute isn't he? The kids were thrilled to see him, and M'Lady even drew a picture of him on the 'magnadoodle' thing we keep in the car for her.

Harvesting Again

I managed to get the broccoli harvested… it was quite delicious! But then the cabbage white butterflies came… and well, the last cabbage should show you the result of that! I don't have a good closeup though! They got ALL of my brassica veggies. Otherwise, yes, the garden is quite blooming and growing.

Our beans and corn are growing well… in fact I managed to pick a goodly number of beans the other day. I am hoping the squash will start to fruit soon, I HAVE spotted a few blooms ;)

The tomatoes have a few baby tomatoes and although all my peas are done, we did get to eat a number of them.

I would show you pictures, but in reformatting my computer, it looks like I forgot the most recent photos :(

Oh well... life goes on!