Sunny Days

Sunny Days and high temperatures are making the garden grow at last.  The sunflowers are blooming and the tomatoes are producing and even starting to turn red.  We thought summer would never get here and now it has come in with a heat wave.   The plants are sure loving it and it is getting us outside at last.  My favorite part of this weather is hanging around outside at night watching the sun set and the bats fly around eating bugs.  Living up in the mountains is reminding me of camping when I was young, the smell of the evergreens and the sound of people outside enjoying the weather and each other makes for good times.

  This will be our first ripe tomato it was labeled Sweet Million only Michael thinks it is too large in size to be a true Sweet Million.  No matter what its name I’m sure it will be quite tasty.  We grew some Nema Gold Marigold’s under most of our tomatoes and they are also enjoying the summer weather as is the basil.  Can’t wait for the tomato, balsamic, mozzarella and basil salad and the cucumber salad, zucchini pie and so much more…yummmm!!!

The Strawberries are even ripening and we will soon have lots of berries.  I just got my order from King Arthur Flour and I ordered some special cake flour and fun cake pan that will have a space to add a creamy filling and/or a bunch of fresh berries and some whipped cream for a fabulous dessert to eat on a hot summer evening.  We did have a visitor in out strawberry patch the other night that was just trying to stay cool…a big gopher snake was chilling under the leaves and gave quite a startle.  We had 2 little boys visiting who kept saying how they wanted to see a snake until it was there and then they were a little leary of getting too close.  It did cause a little excitement though.

The herb garden is growing in leaps and bounds also since my last post more than a month ago.   You can almost not see the satellite dish anymore.  One of my favorite plants in the herb garden right now is the Harvest Moon Echinacea.  It should get lots bigger still, but it does have a lot of blooms on it.   I finally found the dwarf pineapple sage plant that I was looking for, but it is so small it isn’t showing up yet so watch for this in future pictures.  We have had one big harvest of the Italian Parsley and dried it in the food dehydrator.  We filled 2 jars with the beautiful dark green leaves, I love drying with the dehydrator because herbs keep their color better and I know they aren’t covered with dust.  It takes about 24 hours or a bit more for a large harvest.

The hummingbirds are loving hanging out at both of our feeders and empty both daily.  We have counted as many as 10 at a time.  We are mixing our own hummingbird food rather than buying a red mix and here is the recipe:

• 1 Cup pure cane sugar
• 4 Cups Water

That is all nothing more.  They love it!  We have lots of flowers around that they also seem to enjoy also.  I know they will love the pineapple sage when that blooms, too.

Enjoy the summer that has finally arrived and watch things grow!

Ferne