Cheesemaking Adding to the Menu Choices from your Garden and a more Self Sufficient Lifestyle

I got this cheese kit today and am looking forward to trying it out.

Eight different types of cheese to choose from sounds promising.

This also gives me a good reason to visit the dairy farm on the edge of town if I don't want to use milk from the grocery store. I live in the middle of a small city
so I'm in no hurry to keep my own livestock...at least until I know whether or not I love doing this and plan to keep it up or not.

As you can see on the box the kit company has a website: www.cheesemaking .com I plan to check that out next.

If I run into problems it's reassuring that they have tech support and a phone number. The first step for me will be to read all of the materials and instructions that came with the kit.

5 Tips on Gardening from a Wheelchair

1. Don't tip too far out of your chair. It stops traffic and frightens the neighbors.

2. Weed or trim only the plants that you can reach safely.

3. Make sure that the surface that you roll your chair on is solid, hard enough and free of holes or ruts.

4. A paper bag is lightweight and easy to handle if you tuck it between your feet on the footrest. It should stay firmly in place there until you get where you want to dump it.

5. Don't forget to take lots of breaks to enjoy whatever is blooming, fruiting or ready to pick.

Windowsill and Patio Peas

Individual plant with pea pods.

Young and tender pea pods indoors.

In a large patio pot.They did seem to get a bit taller here.

Picking and shelling peas for lunch.

Art in your mailbox

I only have one lily like this so I wanted to enjoy and share it as much as I could while it lasted.

I started with a small pencil sketch in the corner of an envelope.

Great uses for Garden Catalogs, learn to draw with garden catalogs

There are some garden catalogs that are illustrated with drawings instead of photos so they make fine examples to work from when you're trying to draw different varieties of flowers. Today I'm starting with Tulips and was surprised to see how many types, sizes and shapes they come in. I'll be starting with the more common ones that I'm familiar with. The next one will be pen and ink.

At this point I poured myself a cup of coffee and began to write a letter on it. It's important to take breaks an focus on something else for a while but I'll get back to drawing soon.

Heirloom Peas and Strawberries

The few strawberries that I was able to save are doing well. About half of them are flowering and setting fruit. The secret to saving these was to put lots of little metal things around them to protect them from the squirrels who dug up and ate ALL of them in the big, brown tired planter.

I ended up planting peas in that tiered, brown planter because that's all I had left this year. 

As you can see I'm planting other things in place of the strawberries here. There just wasn't any money available to buy more this year.

Roses, Bee and a Wren House

I painted this bird house a couple of years ago and it's been full of happy families ever since. Yes it's wrens again.

Bees may be threatened in other places but they're doing well here. There are plenty of flowers and none of them have been treated or sprayed in any way.

I still need to find that grapevine and pull it out of there but I'm pleased to see that everything looks healthy and the leaves of the roses and the grapes are undamaged.

I still haven't been able to get anyone to trim the bushes which are several feet from where they started and spreading like wild. Last week all you could see in this corner were spirea bushes and geraniums.

One of the things I love about this garden is how things bloom one after another so that there's always something nice to look at and the colors are constantly changing.

This side of the rose garden is the most impressive. It's a collection of 4 different kinds of roses collected over several decades and now covers an area that's seven foot tall and over 15 feet wide.

 All of the varieties of roses that I grow make rose hips so there a food source too and part of the certified wildlife habitat that we maintain here.

Iris,heirloom mini pea plants and a day in the garden

I'm glad you could join me to see the iris blooming again, these have been here for over a decade and were a trade for a painted chair when I first moved to the neighborhood.

At the time I didn't have room in the house for the chair and there was almost nothing for flowers in the yard so I was glad to do it. I've had a lot of years of pleasure out of them and they don't need to be dusted like the extra furniture would have so I'm happy.

It's only the second year for the columbine but they're another addition that I was really pleased with.

As a gardener I find all of the shade here quite a challenge but I can't help but I can't help being amazed at the size of these trees...especially when you realize that we're only 6 blocks from downtown.

I'm very pleased with my choice of peas this year. it's great that you can grow so much in such a small place and never need a trellis for them. I'll be growing this variety again next year. One name for them is Tom Thumb and if you read back a few posts you'll find out more about them.

Here are follow up photos from June 8th:

These creamy yellow Iris are a welcome sight each year and were part of the trade for that old chair.

The radishes are getting to be a pretty good size so I can't resist munching on a few of those each time I go by.

Here are more of those peas and as you can see, they're already flowering and ready to produce. That didn't take long, did it?

As always, this remains my favorite place for coffee. I had to pick a few strawberries to snack on this morning. I got two and the critters had eaten two. Strawberries this year have been a lost cause.

 As you can see I had spread those Iris around quite a bit until I can get some other perennials.

I'm happy to say that my husband just got home from the garden center and I can't wait to see what he brought.

I'm headed outside to play and hope you get a chance to as well, it's a great way to spend the summer and good eating too.