The heat is on.

The heat is on, my friends. It's been so hot and humid lately. Everyday I get home from work, jump into my yard work clothes and go straight outside. I water, weed, harvest and sweat like crazy. There are plenty of tomatoes and peppers but they are still green. The okra is producing so fast I don't know what to do with it all. I must find time to pickle some. The cucumber vines are trellised and it's a wall of huge leaves and prickly vines. This makes it hard to find the cucumbers. They are so camouflaged that I've found a few after it's become too late, swollen and yellow. I've pulled up all of the potatoes and carrots. It's so satisfying to get my hands dirty and discover what's been growing under there all of this time. Ahh, the joys of gardening!

Clematis

First okra harvest.

Fingerling potatoes.

Butterfly bush with daisies and echinacea in the background

Our dove eggs finally hatched!

You can barely see them but there are two sweet little doves in there!

Tuberoses (about to bloom) are the most delicious smelling flowers ever.

Swallowtail butterfly caterpillar. Apparently they love dill.

This stripped plant is what my dill looked like after they ravaged it. They can have all they want!

Crazy carrot harvest! Any ideas for what to make with them?

The biggest Dragon carrot that I pulled. Sadly, it went in the compost because I imagined that it wouldn't taste good, but I had to show you how big they can get!

Old news.

In April, I wrote an article for the Merc News about being a novice gardener and was also featured on a banner at the front of the store. It was so much fun to have strangers come up to me and want to chat about gardening. I also just found all of these pictures documenting the process of creating our perennial flower garden. As you can see, Chris worked really hard on carving out a space and chiseling pieces of rock to make the border. My job was planting and mulching. We both absolutely love this garden and can't wait to watch it fill in over the years.

Jozie and Brian from Earth Flowers helped me decide what to plant and where to plant it.

Step 1: carve out the sod.

Step 2: dig out random bricks that were left over from an old planter.

Step 3: line border with rocks

Step 4: put plants in the ground.

Step 5: mulch.

Step 6: enjoy the beautiful flowers!

dinner party

Last night we had two of our favorite people over for dinner, Kendra and Aaron Marable. I have to brag a little because I believe that I prepared the most delicious meal in my years of cooking. I made mussels in a white wine pesto sauce, garlic french fries, sauteed spinach and basil leaves and crusty bread from Wheatfield's to sop up the pesto sauce. For dessert there was (store bought) vanilla ice cream with a gin and blueberry reduction drizzled on top. It was de-lish!

lovey dovey

I was wrong. There are two eggs. I took my little stool outside to take a peek. I got within a foot before mama dove flew off. She is really protective. I was so excited to find two eggs in there. It's interesting how different her nest building style is from the finches.

Those vampires won't be coming around here!

Holy cow, there is just so much to say. Chris and I went to Colorado for a week and the garden went crazy. We had wonderful house guests (thank you Kristin and Eric!) who took care of our yard and our kitty and it rained a TON! Everything is so abundant and beautiful, it's just breathtaking. I harvested the most gigantic bundle of basil tonight. I spent 2 hours in the kitchen, with my food processor whirling away, making 2 quarts of pesto. I'll probably give a little away and Chris will eat the rest, because he LOVES it. I love to freeze pesto in little packets for fresh summer meals in the middle of winter. We are rethinking the lower garden for next year. Maybe we will combine both gardens and fence them in with something a little more permanent. We are so overwhelmed with ideas of new projects--the gardens, the deck area that I want to be more like an outside room, the storage room that I want to turn into a guest room. The possibilities are endless. It's great to be back home and at work where I love the people, the atmosphere and the meaning behind all that I do. Check out what the Merc is up to these days. It's so cool how involved in the community we are.

My insane basil harvest!

Vampires won't be coming around here!

Two kinds of cukes!

Basil mania!

Two kinds of okra!

Cosmos and tomatoes!

Echinacea!

Basil and nasturtium.

Prepping basil for pesto.

Ready for some whirling!

The finished product.

And finally, our newest family member, a dove who has made a nest in the same fern as our finch family. There is one egg. Maybe she will come back next year too.

What's up doc?

My very special friend, Kristin, came over last night to have dinner. While we were walking through the garden we noticed how out of control the carrot patch is because I never thinned them out. We were curious about what shape they were in so we decided to dig some up. It was my first substantial harvest of the season! It was fun to have someone there to share it with me.

A mixture of Scarlet Nantes and Dragon carrots from Seed Savers.