Thinning

Making room in the row....it was time to thin the carrots!

Ya gotta love "Carrot Pants"

A tasty early morning treat....Fresh from the garden!

Good Bugs vrs. Bad Bugs

This is my first year growing Artichokes in my Zone 5b garden. I have read that if you start them early enough and transplant them in the garden when it's still cold enough, you can trick them into producing the first year.... 

I was super happy to see Artichokes forming on 3 of the 5 plants in the garden, with one exception....

Only one of the plants was completely coated in aphids and ants...the others were sparkly clean!

This plant still looked healthy and I didn't have anything on hand to organically treat and eradicate the aphids. I painfully made the decision to leave this Artichoke to it's unsightly demise as a sacrificial lamb.... In hopes the others would be spared from such an unsightly death.

these creepy crawly pictures were taken on July 9th.

After discussing this with my Garden club gals....One of the girls mentioned that sometimes if left alone the Ants are actually doing some farming of their own. 

Well, fast forward to today (12 days from the first photo)

The same Artichoke plant is completely and utterly wiped clean of any trace of aphids and the Artichoke has grown :-)

Looks like the Good Bugs won this round!

Mystery solved

Had this beautiful mystery blossom growing out on a trail on our property...I knew I ad never planted anything like it in the past 17 years since we have lived at the property...Well, thank goodness for Facebook....

My neighbor happily told me it was a volunteer from her property known as Lychnis Coronaria

Looks like I will be moving some a little closer to the house to enjoy the vibrant electric  pink blossoms. I found detailed information on saving seeds over at Defining Your Home, Garden and travel. 

Big Broccoli

This garden girl has been away from her blog for way to long....Never fear, she's still happily living life and playing in the dirt every chance she gets :-)

Today's harvest... Big Broccoli! We have been harvesting smaller heads here and there, but this by far was our biggest yet! Guess what's for dinner ;-)