Time for writing

Been Oh, so very busy planting for it seems forever now!! LOL!!!

Making such progress!! We enjoyed a home grown salad with dinner last night. A variety of lettuce and spinach leaves. Almost done with the new plants and seeds. I am trying out many new veggies and several different types of gardens. As I find more time I will share more details. Also testing out lots and lots of edibles. And in my spare time I am getting more familiar with Facebook as I have just recently reconnected with an out of state branch of the family, who use this network as a means of staying in touch. Need to get more computer friendly. What a wonderful way to stay connected.

As we are having a cool spell, I will be continuing my work on the raspberry patch - Had a wonderful new gardener, Hulya in on Sunday, and we got the lawn removed, for her to recycle in her yard, in the area where I will be expanding the berry patch!

Have been so busy I have forgotten to bring my camera out, so need to do that today. I have lots of photos to post, and stories to tell. All in good time! Enjoy the day!

A tasty treat

We are still picking raspberries! They are terrific at this time of year. Here is one as big as my thumb! You can tell when I am really getting into my gardening by the color of my fingernails!!




This was a quick handful for a tasty morning treat while working in the gardens. I have always loved raspberries, but find that I now prefer the yellow ones, which are a little sweeter than the red.



Followed up the raspberries with some protein from these Jewelweed seeds!

Jewelweed and raspberries

Nice box, here - have no clue how to get rid of it, so enjoy this great empty space!!! LOL

Have been learning so much lately, trying to focus on the edibles. This is Jewelweed, or Spotted Touch-me-not, Impatiens capensis, a native plant. I have posted on it previously, and was quite surprised to learn that it is an edible plant. Found this out on my foraging walk.




One edible part is the seeds. Just one problem, they are quite tricky to harvest. I have always enjoyed having them around as the kids just love to pop the seed pods. Now I come to find out that I have this treasure trove of edible seeds!!



Tried taking off a pod to check out the tastiness of the seeds, but had a little trouble. If you are not careful, the seed pod will explode, expelling the seeds all over before you have a chance to save any.





After a few tries I finally managed to keep a seed pod from exploding to get this photo.





It is an amazing fete. This seed pod pops open, curls back on itself and expels its seeds all in under the blink of an eye. The seeds can get thrown quite a distance and unless you grow them on hard top, they are impossible to gather once on the ground.




So here are the newly released seeds from one pod. As you can see they are green, just like the pod. When you open them up they are robin's egg blue inside!!




Who knew that such a beautiful color would be hiding inside such a tiny, seed. And that they would be quite pleasant to the taste buds!!
In checking out my raspberries on a daily basis, they are getting better and bigger with this nice cool weather. They are as big as my thumbnail! Notice the fine dirt underneath the nail!!




Have been so busy in the gardens, I don't bother to try to get them clean until the end of the day!! My preference has always been to work glove free whenever possible, so as to be able to feel that great earth between my fingers!!
Out and about yesterday morning, I had a great snack of Jewelweed seeds,




with my raspberries, both red and yellow!!



Now that is fresh!!