{In the Garden}

Well it hasn't been a total failure....

I made a quick sauce out of these a few nights ago.  It's super easy.  Roast them in the oven with garlic and olive oil for about 30 minutes, puree and there you go!

A friend of mine gave me the parsley plant and it is doing well.  I've used it a few times in various dishes.

 

 

 

 

 

I received a couple of tomatillo plants from the same friend.  I've never grown them or even eaten them to my knowledge, but they are doing well too.  I saw a recipe for roasting them and making a "jam" at A Way to Garden that I think I'll try.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sunflowers, zinnias and cosmos seemed to take forever to finally bloom, but once they did they looked great!  To the right of the zinnias are some type of teeny little hollyhocks.  They looked really good for a while too, but they are finished now.  Hopefully all their little seeds are falling to fill in that spot for next year since I know the zinnias won't come back.

 

 



This area is my attempt at a butterfly garden.  When we moved here there was an ugly propane oil tank here and some over grown bushes.  I saw it every time I walked from the living room to our bedroom and every time we drove up to the house from the East.  It didn't take too long to get ride of all that.  The green plants in the back are called Goose necks.  They are mostly finished blooming, but they have pretty white blooms that are long and curved like a gooses neck and they have filled this spot in quickly.  If you look closely in the middle you can see something "dead" in between the sedum and the goose neck.  That is bee balm that a dear friend gave me this year after it had already bloomed.  Hopefully, next year it will fill in nicely between the sedum and goose neck.  You can also see the same butterfly as you see in the picture below.  I was surprised at how close I was able to get without it flying away!

 

 

We've also eaten a few carrots from the garden and more tomatoes.  Kate was very excited about pulling and eating her carrots and Cameron has had a few of his beloved tomato sandwiches so I call that a success.

 

Now if I can just figure out what to do about the creeping Charlie that is taking over our lawn!