Pickled Peppers

To my husband surprise and happiness I made him some pickled pepperoncini peppers. We love to make Italian beef sandwiches and you need these to make them. Sometimes they are hard to find in the stores (or I forget to buy them.) And they are not so hot that you have to dress in a hazmet suit to work with them!

We have about five butterfly bushes around our little pond besides several others around the yard. Lately, at any give time, there are 5 or 6 swallowtail butterflies on them. And they are huge this year! They are also hard to photograph. They flap their wings like they are frantic to get all that nectar. There are others that I don't know the names of, like that blue one above. So pretty!

This has been the most perfect garden year here in Indiana. The weather has been mild, with rain right when we need it. I heard on the news that crop production will be the best in 25 years. This is a view of our veggie garden border. It is lush and full of flowers, insects and hummingbirds. What a beautiful time of year!

Pretty Little Hexagons

 I just finished this little quilt made with 3/4 inch hexagons. It made the perfect summer stitching. I packed up a little box with paper hexagons, fabric, and thread so I could just pick it up and go. I love to do English Paper Piecing!

We just got back from wonderful day of canoeing on the Wildcat Creek. It was grandson Tad's first time and he had so much fun. It reminded me of all the times we took our little guys out on the creek. I will post some pictures if I can ever find the cord for my little camera:)

My Herb Garden

With all of the rain we are getting the gardens are growing like crazy. I thought I would give a little tour of our herb garden as it is at it's peak right now.

 I have the garden (sort of) sectioned off into different categories as to use. In the medicinal section are echinecea, monarda, comphey, feverfew, lamb's ear, evening primrose, and valerian. I don't use herbs for healing, but I enjoy reading about how they have been used in the past and current trends.

In the Tea Garden, I have lemon balm, chamomile, anise hyssop, more monarda, catmint, and pineapple sage. I don't even like herb tea (I only drink Constant Comment Green), but I love the look and scents of these traditional tea herbs.

The household garden has herbs used for pests control, such as penneyroyal, rue, and artemesia. I also have some flowers used for drying like statice and rose. Every few years I make several varieties of potpourri.

 

The largest section is the cooking herbs. And I actually use these! I just love the smell and taste of dill, sage, basil, and all the others that we use every day. I have the perennial herbs on one side and the annual cooking herbs in one of the center beds. This bed above also has some cosmos, nasturtiums, and borage for color.
I just love the look of all of these plants together.

This last bed is full of lavender. Heavenly! Around the outside of the herb garden I have planted several butterfly bushes, roses, chives, and larkspur and bachelor buttons for drying.

As you can imagine, I spend a lot of time here. It is an easy garden to keep weeded, and is a job I enjoy.

"Who bends a knee where violets grow, I hundred secret things shall know" - Rachel Field.

Our Happy 4th

We had friends and family over for a cookout yesterday afternoon. It was too chilly to get in the pool, but we had a great time eating, talking, wandering the yard, playing with Tad, and setting off a few fireworks.  (Eric and his dad really like those bottle rockets!) Afterwards, we went down the road to watch the big fireworks.

I hope everyone is having a great holiday weekend. We're hoping to go canoeing on Sunday if the weather cooperates. (I'm crossing my fingers:)

Vegetable Garden

Oh how I love summer!  Everything about it. And right now I'm enjoying the vegetable garden. Even though we have only harvested salad things so far, tomatoes, cukes, squash and beans will be ready any day now.

I weeded and cleaned up the tomato plants yesterday. We have so many little tomatoes coming on and one big one almost ready to pick.

Rick has been dosing them with manure tea and they are growing like crazy. I trim up the plants to about 12 inches from the ground. This keeps the leaves off the ground and away from pesky viruses and fungus. I also trim off water shoots. This keeps the plants in check and lets the sun in to ripen up the fruit.

For many years we used cages around the tomatoes, but I switched to stakes about 15 years ago after seeing it in a magazine. The plants are much more manageable and easier to pick. We use old t-shirts for the ties. They are soft and stretchy and expand as the stems grow.

I should be able to harvest some baby squash today. And also some peppers:

The small pepper plants were started late in the greenhouse, but the larger ones are already producing sweet bell, jalapeno, and chilies.

These plants have tiny cukes in with all the yellow flowers. I love cucumbers in salads and chopped on bagels. I can't wait!

Now this pile of bean plants were supposed to be neat rows of bush beans. I buy my seeds at a garden center that packages it's own seeds and I think they made a little mistake! I have since reseeded, but I left these and hope I can get in there and harvest some beans soon.

This is the salad bed. I just pulled up the spinach plants that had gone to seed and will plant more onions in their place. I'm still harvesting the mixed lettuces and will probably save the carrots for later and freeze them for soups and pot roasts.

Years ago we had a much bigger garden and it has slowly gotten smaller as we've added more perennial fruit plants and trees. Now we just have these 9 raised beds. The center bed is filled with annual flowers and a rusty windmill.

I love working in this vegetable garden. It is small enough to clean up quickly and large enough to provide us with the vegetables we can really use. So what are you growing in your gardens? I'd love to see!

Small Quilt Addiction

When I am tired out from working in the garden I like nothing better than sitting back with some kind of needlework. I try to always have something ready for hand work such as quilting or embroidery. These little quilts took just a short time at the machine and then I can take my time finishing them up. The little quilt above is from an Australian magazine.

I have lots of small scraps that are just too pretty to throw out, so these small quilts are perfect scrap busters.
Though those scraps have a way of multiplying no matter how many I use:)

The above quilt is from the book Quilted Gifts, by Barri Sue Gaudel. Love this book by the way.

So what do you like to do on your down time? Do you need to keep your hands busy at all times, like I do?
Have a great week!

June Gardens

June has got to be my most favorite month of the year. Our gardens are just bursting into bloom and every day there is something new to see. The pond has got new blooms and tadpoles growing tiny hind legs. Bluebirds are flying all over the yard, nesting in several places. Yesterday we watched an oriole gathering fibers for her nest from a hanging basket. And the new chicks have grown into beautiful birds loving all the weeds, scraps, and grubs we give them.

This is the third day of perfect sunny weather for us. Yesterday I was getting over a case of food poisoning and didn't get much done. Today I'm hoping to work in the veggie garden, tying up the tomatoes - they are growing like crazy - and doing some weeding (they are growing like crazy too!) I'll be sharing some pictures of that garden and some crafting pics soon.