Return from Vacation!

We returned from a week away having vacationed in Fair Haven, New York on Lake Ontario.

Here are the tomatoes that ripened while we were gone.  I can't pick the green beans because the leaves are wet.  The garden is at the point where it needs a total overhaul.  That will have to wait until later this week or next.



We stopped in Watkins Glen on the trip north and visited the state park there.

We rented a house at the Anchor Resort and Marina on Little Sodus Bay in Fair Haven, New York.

 

The house had a wonderful front porch among its many pluses.

 We visited many of the nearby parks including this one where the water and wind had carved these chimneys.

 We took a side trip up to Clayton, NY on the St. Lawrence River and toured the Thousand Islands on a boat trip.

 We saw lots of wildlife including this frog.

 We swam in Lake Ontario at Fair Haven Beach State Park and canoed in the pond and creek that fed the pond.

More photos to come at my shutterfly site.

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Wordless Wednesday

Harvest Monday - Hazelnuts

Several years ago I was sent some hazelnut trees from the Arbor Day Foundation.  I planted them initially in my perennial bed but moved them last year to one side of the wood shop.  
I never thought I would see hazelnuts.  They never seemed to be more than a green shrub.  This year one of them had blooms and now I have had a hazelnut harvest.  I hope the squirrels don't discover them.

We've tasted them and they taste fine.  Sarah says we need to roast them because that's how they sell them in China.  I'll let her try that.

Here's the second harvest on Friday.

And from the vegetable department: tomatoes,

 green Cherokee purple to see how they ripen inside,

and peppers with two Market Miracle tomatoes that keeps producing!

See other harvests at host: Daphne's Dandelions.

Volunteers

I know you have them in your yard - volunteers!  Those trees and plants that appear on their own and you don't have the heart to pull out.

Here are four that I face a decision about.

First, some sort of squash.  I let a previous volunteer grow and even transplanted it.  It produced a fruit which when cooked was tasteless.  This one I have no idea what it is and I'm leaving it for now because its green and fills in a spot in the perennial garden.  It won't last past the first frost.

 This one is growing out of the compost bin.  Is it a cucumber or melon?  It won't last long where it is.

 This volunteer red bud tree came with a bleeding heart from my mom.  I've left it here in this corner of the perennial bed but now I realize it needs to find a new home.  But where is the question?  It truly likes it here where it's growing.

 This volunteer cedar tree is growing in the liriope near the pond.  I've transplanted other mini cedar trees to a miniature garden in a pail but none of those survived.  This one has gotten too big to do that and is getting too big to stay where it is.  Where to put it?