Welcome to my Starting a garden blog Post #18 🌻 🙂 First some flowers.
We planted some painted daisies in a bed along the driveway that have been lovely.
There is a nice variety of colors. We moved into a new house about a year ago and have been working on the beds. I started this blog to discuss building some raised beds. It has morphed into a blog about everything growing outside my house 😊 Flowers (lots of flowers), the raised beds which are mostly veggies, a few fruit trees, and even a few of the local critters.
Local green frog that found his way out of the creek, up the hill and over the 12" high edge of the beds into a raised bed. I was excited to read online that frogs like slugs. Better him than me dealing with those icky slugs.
The highlight of this week was making some pickles.
We have lots of pickling cucumbers (and don't get me started on the zucchini that is already stacking up in the kitchen 🙄).
The first harvest of cukes filled up a large colander.
Ok now for a little confession...
Pickling is the process of preserving or extending the shelf life of food by either anaerobic fermentation in brine or immersion in vinegar. - Wikipedia
I've always thought of pickling as anaerobic fermentation in brine. We use an Icebox pickles recipe. I've included my wife's grandma's recipe. Handwritten by Doe herself may she rest in peace.
What do you think? Are REAL pickles fermented? or do icebox pickles count?
Ok here is this season's first batch of pickles. They are safely in the refrigerator. The countdown begins 📅
A few quick updates on new projects in the garden this week. I spent $3 on a ball of twine. So much potential...
Built a simple trellis to rein in the raspberries.
Also added some stakes to tie up a few of the sunflowers.
The green beans were pulling over the sunflowers in their climb to sunlight 🤣
Finally, the cucumbers quickly climbed up the trellis I built and were extending about 12" further into the sky with no support. I added a 10 ft pole for fun 🙂 We will see how high they climb.
My wife loves putting pinwheels around the garden. Supposedly to scare off the birds but I think she just likes the added color.
That's a wrap. See you all next week ☮️🌻🙂
Bonus pic:
Cone flowers are finally blooming. #alwaysaflower