Little Moments in a Life - 5

80 degrees 

Cleaning flower beds of weeds. India Arie playing in my ear. Dancing and weed pulling

Finding 2 dead bumblebees, holding them in my hand and stroking their soft furry bodies

Earth worms wiggling back in the ground

Herb Garden and Galettes

On this dreary, rainy Tuesday lets take it back to a sunnier day in the backyard with my herb gardens. I'm so enjoying the herb garden. I'm learning all I can about the herbs, how to grow them, dry them, store them and recipes that use fresh herbs. I'm learning that cilantro doesn't like a lot of water and I may need to plant it in it's own pot. I love rosemary and seems to be pretty easy to grow. Rosemary was actually the first herb I used from my garden in a pear, goat cheese and rosemary galette.

When I tell you that galette was some deliciousness! Hubby would disagree, but he didn't even taste it, so his opinion on this one doesn't count.  He couldn't get past the goat cheese. His loss and more for me! For the galette I used my favorite crust recipe found here. This was my first time baking with pears and won't be my last. I'm kind of loving the pears. I kept eating the slices as I put them in galette. I had to stop myself before I ate them all. Once I assembled the galette, I sprinkled with sugar in the raw, then baked. Once out the oven, I drizzled with honey. YUMMY!

Since Fonzy didn't like the pear galette I made one with strawberries (with 2 strawberries from my garden) and fresh basil from my herb garden. It wasn't as good as my pear one though. I have another crust in the refrigerator right now waiting for another galette. I'm thinking apple with salted caramel sauce. That might be on the agenda for dessert tonight. Need a little goodness to brighten this dreary day!

Herb Garden, Roses and Wildflowers! Oh My!

This past Saturday it finally warmed up and was a perfect day to work in the yard. I've been longing to get out to plant flowers and my herb garden, but the weather hadn't been cooperating. Until now.

I was up bright and early, coffee in hand and new garden boots on! I was too excited about my bright yellow boots with chickens on them! I've been wearing them every time I go out to work in the yard. They are my new favorite.

So on the agenda for the day was to plant an herb garden, wildflowers and 2 rose bushes. There's already 3 rose bushes when we moved here, but one of them is really struggling. I'm hoping to bring it back to life. I was most excited about my herb garden. I have them planted in window box planters I got off Amazon and hung on our back fence. I couldn't risk anything on the ground for fear of Titus peeing on it! I have rosemary, thyme, sage, basil, cilantro (which isn't doing so well) and chocolate mint. I have more, but drawing a blank at the moment. The smell of the fresh herbs was so heady!  I'm excited to watch them grow and cook with them. I've already used rosemary in a pear, goat cheese, homey and rosemary galette I'll be sharing here on the blog. It was delish! While buying my herbs to plant I saw a strawberry plant I couldn't pass it up. We already have berries ready to be picked. I never had an herb garden or strawberries, so I'll be learning along the way, but excited about it all.

Next are the wildflowers. I'm so hoping they actually grow. We have a tree line along our property that I'd like to brighten up with wildflowers. There's not a whole lot we can do with space, but if I can get beautiful, colorful flowers to grow amongst the tress I'd be too happy. Fonzy and I cleared a few areas that get some sun and I planted away. Let's hope we'll see flowers in the next few weeks. And of course I couldn't resist getting sunflowers! I have a couple packets I haven't planted yet, just need to find a nice sunny spot.

And last but not least, I have a grapevine. Yep, you read that right. A grapevine. While searching for a burn barrel to burn leaves and brush from our yard, we found a man less than 5 minutes from us who had barrels. We went to pick it up and ended up spending over 30 minutes talking to him about gardening and family. He had a greenhouse and gave me a little grape plant he had from his own vine. I repot into a bigger container and hope it grows. While reading up on growing grapevines it says it may take a couple years to bear fruit, so I'll just be growing the plant for now. The vine is in the clay pot, with yellow boots, so very small right now. But since I've gotten it, it has grown more leaves on it.

Saturday was definitely a good day, even though I got sunburned. Now to stalk the wildflower patch and watch my herbs grow.

So have you done any planting? Any ideas to help my cilantro? I'm thinking it needs it's own pot and less water, but not sure. I'm learning as I go along.

Backyard Chronicles

I'm so excited!! My pumpkin plants are growing! No pumpkins yet though! I'm just happy with the plant part. I got nothing last year and didn't have high hopes this year. That's why I just used a little section of my flower bed to plant the seeds and they must have liked the area. They are little sugar pumpkins, like these. If I get one pumpkin, I will be happy.

My sunflowers and gladiolus are still blooming. I didn't get as many sunflowers as I've gotten in previous years, but I still get happy when I look out and see them reaching for the sun.

Is it too early for Fall decorations? I was in Michaels the other day and they had Fall stuff out. I kind of wanted to grab a few things and start decorating. I told myself I would hold off until the middle of August at least. Come August 15th, it's on!! Until then, I will pumpkin stalk in my backyard.

Summertime!

Happy 1st day of Summer!

I love summer with all it's green, and pretty flowers.I get so excited each year when my gladiolus come up. They are the only perennials I have planted as of right now. Each year, I plant sunflowers and last year, I planted daisies, and a few pumpkin seeds. The daisies and pumpkins never came up, but my sunflowers were gorgeous as always. I think I planted the pumpkins too early last year, so I'm trying again this year. One of my flower beds was empty on one side, since my daisies didn't come up so I cleaned up that area and planted a few pumpkin seeds a couple weeks ago. I wasn't really expecting anything to come up since last year they didn't, but you see those little green sprouts?? Those are pumpkin sprouts!! I wasn't sure if they were pumpkin sprouts at first, so I did a search online and they are!! I didn't plant huge pumpkins, just little sugar ones, but I'm so excited! I will be content if I get just one pumpkin.

Every evening, I've been going out and watering my flowers and fern in the front on the porch. I haven't killed the fern yet! Yay me! Everything is thriving! This weekend on a morning flower checkin, I had a visitor. He let me take several pictures, while he enjoyed the sunshine and flower nectar. I seem to get little visitors every summer. Here are some from last year.

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday!

Don't you just love Fridays? They are my favorite! Plans this weekend include my first visit to the community pool of the season, my son's girlfriend graduation from high school, some grilling, a trip to the farmers market and I'm thinking of making a strawberry and rhubarb galette. I've never made one, and have never had rhubarb, but I heard it's good. I have a couple recipes saved on Pinterest on my Strawberry Season board and have plans to make a couple of the recipes before summer is over.

Our yard is looking pretty good right now. It's so green and bursting with life, Sunflowers and gladiolus are growing, bees are buzzing and Titus is enjoying the shade trees.

I have a fern on our little porch and hoping I can keep it alive. Nothing screams Southern charm quite like a full, lush fern hanging on the porch. I've been watering and spritzing it every day. I've even feed it miracle grow. I'm determined to keep this fern alive and well.

So what do you have planned this weekend? I hope it's a great one!