Saturday, August 9, 2014

Today in Our Garden * Grape Jelly time! #GardenCuizine #gardenchat

Today in Our Garden
South Jersey
USDA Zone 7a (formerly zone 6b)
August 9, 2014
Harry picked a colander full of organic red grapes this morning. We plan on making grape jelly. Also, we finally spotted a few more swallowtail butterflies this morning. This year we haven't seen as many butterflies as we usually see - have you?

Hummingbirds are more active at the feeders now, and flowers are blooming all over the place, except for dahlias and goldenrod. We noticed meadows of yellow goldenrod blooming now in the Adirondacks, which is further north. Here at home, even Mom pulled out her cell phone camera to snap a few flower photos this morning.

Some of our NJ blooms include:
  • Buddleia (the few we have left after die back from last winter)
  • Sunflowers (from bird seed)
  • Limelight hydrangea (shown next to Harry in top photo)
  • Green-Headed Coneflower, Rudbeckia laciniata (yellow blooms shown)
  • Coronado hyssop (my new hummingbird favorite! check out my Dave's Garden article Hummingbird favorite: Coronado Hyssop
greeter at the garden gate

  • Four o'clocks, Zinnias, red Cannas, Cosmos
  • Hostas, Hibiscus
  • Apple mint, Phlox, Black-eyed Susans
  • Salvias (including lady in red, Yvonne's, black and blue)
yesterday's harvest
The veggie garden is full of heirloom tomatoes, basil, potatoes, chia and both sweet and hot peppers. 

We have the BIGGEST TOMATO that I've ever grown or seen ripening on the vine now. It's a gigantic yellow heirloom tomato. An award winner for sure. All our tomatoes were grown from saved seeds from the largest tomatoes of the previous year. Guess it works!

We're looking forward to seeing the actual weight of our largest heirloom tomato ever along with large, dinner plate dahlia blooms - all coming soon.

Hope you are having a happy and healthy summer

Related Links
Homemade Reduced Sugar Grape Jelly
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
Photos and blog post Copyright (C)2014 Wind. All rights reserved.

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