I love my little herb garden, even though it's pretty inconveniently distanced from the house. Dill is great for salmon, cilantro puts out beautiful tiny flowers that I love to use in bouquets, and parsley is great for a mild accent. I haven't used any thyme yet, but I have plenty...along with the basil. When you plant 10 varieties, you get...a lot of basil.
So far, I'm only using 2 varieties in cooking. Cinnamon, Ruffled, Lemon, Holy Tulsi, Amorotto, Cardinal, etc. sound interesting, but they don't smell quite right for recipes. Thankfully Todd likes pesto! So far, a broccoli lemon pesto pasta and a standard mixed-basil pesto for an artichoke/roasted tomato pizza have been rousing successes. And, of course, all basils are lovely in bouquets!
We had one last blast of rain before the summer heat set in.
My beloved sweet peas and snapdragons are rapidly going to seed. I've picked a last few bouquets using those and other last-legs cool flowers.
The final poppies are giving up the ghost, but leaving behind gorgeous seed pods.
Thankfully, there's new growth in the garden to distract me.
These are strawflowers, which look like juicy raspberries before opening.
They are so named because their petals already feel dried - like straw - when they bloom. Naturally, they last forever in bouquets and dried arrangements. Aren't they unusual?
See the little hunter?
We have a lot of other life around here. Deer...with baby!
A lone turkey, hurrying into the underbrush.
Bees...
Dragonflies...
...and loads of butterflies.
Pests are abundant, like Japanese beetles...
...and the flea beetles on my amaranth.
You have to take the good with the bad in gardening, of course. Now that the heat has set in, "the bad" includes 3 hours weekly of monotonous watering for me, and around the same for Todd with mowing, just to keep our paths clear around the barn and to the pond. Typical summer stuff!
At least the dry, hot weather slows down the weeds.
Have a great week!
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