"The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration."
–Claude Monet
8/12/16:
I found out that the mushrooms growing in our lawn were edible meadow mushrooms. I ate one, it had a nice flavor, so now I'm hoping that more will appear.
Other tasty things that are doing well in my garden at the moment include lettuces. Out of the seed varieties I bought last fall, my best-performing lettuce has been the red mustard in the California spicy greens packet. Endive, arugula and mizuna are coming along nicely under the protective netting. I'm trying not to pick too many of the leaves off for salads. The kale has grown slowly; still small and spindly. My first plantings of the flashy trout back and red deer tongue varieties didn't sprout (or perhaps got eaten immediately by insects or dug up by squirrels). But the trout back seeds sown last month have come up recently: such cute little freckled leaves. I have these living near dill and cilantro seedlings in the trellis plant-holder I made. Once they're bigger, I'll move them into empty planter boxes in the vegetable patch area.
Clicking on the small images below will bring up a larger version.
Flashy trout back lettuce sprouts.
Curly chrysanthemum petals.
Love the bold colors of my fuchsias.
As we've passed the midpoint of summer, I'm looking forward to seeing blooms on plants that tend to do best later in the year, such as chrysanthemums and cyclamen. The mums have grown taller and thinner since purchased in October, and the few flowers that have shown up so far have sparser petals, which are sometimes curled up at the edges. I wonder if it needs more fertilizer, different soil, or pruning. The white cyclamen has buds on it again, and the "laser flame" hot pink one has come back from looking almost dead, it's twice the size it was last month.
I'm starting to daydream about fall garden-ish crafts, and am reading about making potpourri, candles with colorful leaves on them, and floral inks...I think the fuchsia blossoms could make a lovely ink. Of course, I should finish projects already in progress first, such as painting clay pots and writing up recipes based on garden ingredients.
