A Mystery Death

I placed chicken wire cylinders around the plants like the cone flower and black-eyed susans that the ground hog likes to eat. I never imagined that it would be an instrument of death, but I know of no other reason for the death of this lovely tiny bird that I found hanging from one of the cylinders just a few minutes ago.

One claw is still grasping the wire. Did it fly into the wire?

It has lovely iridescent feathers on its back.

I'm sorry that this is the only way I've been this close to a humming bird.

A Long Book

Just finished reading "The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett, all 993 pages of it! This book takes place in 12th century England and revolves around the building of a cathedral. Overall Follett weaves a good story line involving the struggle between good and evil. Believability is something else since all but one of the main characters live to ripe old ages; something very doubtful for that time period. Another flaw in the writing is the excessive detail which bogs down the story. I find myself skimming over these parts to find out what is going to happen next.

Do I recommend it? Only if you have the time.

Garlic

Last fall I planted an entire 3 x 3 bed with hardneck garlic. Below its the bed on the right.



In the spring thin shoots visible.


They continued to grow through the spring.

They put out the scapes all of which I cut off, but didn't use them all.

When the lower leave died at the end of June I pulled them and laid them out to dry in the heat of the garage.

Here is my final harvest cleaned up. 14 large bulbs and 5 small ones. There were a few more that I used already or gave away.

Now I have to select one or two of these for next year's crop. I won't plant as much because it took up so much space which meant I had to start the zucchini later.

Harvest Monday

Amish paste tomatoes are ripening. Here are the ones picked on Saturday. I weighed them on the bathroom scale and it came to 3 lbs! The one in the center was 1 lb. alone. I think I need to take seeds from that one.

Here's the large one compared to the normal size. I don't know why it so much bigger.

The goldies are ripening too. These were picked on Saturday.

One of several cucumbers that I picked this week to make pickles following Daphne's recipe (as best I could) for refrigerator pickles.

My first goldie and sliced below to dip in flour and fry in butter.

See other wonderful harvests at Daphne's Dandelions.