Green and yellow beans are almost ready for picking. 

 

Cucumbers coming in slowly.  Red salvia (self-seeding) are growing everywhere between other vegetables and I allow them to.  Hummingbirds and other pollinators love them. 

 

My first zucchini!  Didn't even know one was growing under those large leaves. 

Also found a watermelon growing.  I've never planted melons.  The compost heap is full of seeds that grow voluntarily.  I shouldn't even plant seeds from a packet, just spread the compost and let nature go from there. 

 Fava beans.  I love fava beans.  They bring me back to when I walked from our home down the gravel road, past the bulls, which scared the daylights out of me because my older brother, Chip, used to tell me the bulls would charge at me so I had better run quickly past them, to the Portuguese Club where I bought their delicious fava beans during festivals.  This morning I enclosed these babies in a little fence to keep the bunnies from nibbling my leaves.  I hope it works. 

 Yesterday at the farmers market I bought a different kind of mushroom, very light and delicate.  Sauteed it them butter.

 Kind of sad that this year there are fewer butterflies and bumblebees.  In previous years the large yellow squash and melon type flowers attracted the big fuzzy bumbles and I could hear them at work when in the garden.  It's due to so many sprays and toxins that get caught up in the breeze and land in other gardens and wild flowers.  Some of the Boulder Creek residents have Orkin or whoever spray their yards weekly getting upset when they see ants, spiders, etc. in the yard.  I can't figure out why they moved to the forest.

Swiss chard growing between watermelons.

Went to the library Friday and checked out two  easy no-brainer summer readers.  I haven't been able to sit and read or concentrate for so many months, not even sure how long but the other day suddenly I felt like sitting on the porch with a BOOK in my hand.  I'm not a kindle person.  I need to do the old-fashion reading and enjoy turning pages,using a bookmark, and sitting back in my porch swing with a book.  The one I'm reading is the same story-line of others I've read but it's relaxing, no thinking, no running from dramatic scenes.  Mary Kay Andrews, The Fixer Upper, is about a young woman with a law degree working in DC who suddenly is fired due to political scandal (surprise!).  She finds out that she's inherited a home called Birdsong in Guthrie,GA and of course it's a rundown dump but she decides to stay in rural Guthrie where everyone knows your business and never return to DC or a city again.  I'm drawn to these kinds of novels and I usually research authors who write about Low Country, NC, and SC settings.........easy going laid back novels.

 

Finally!!!!

The sinkhole is filled in and the driveway graded.  Another project finished.  I'll slowly get the containers moved back into the sunny spots but this feels good.  

Cliff always proofed my blogs so if there are confusing sentences or incomplete thoughts, blame him. The incomplete thoughts are real..still but I'm getting batter.....better.