Posts tagged ‘cosmos’
Summer picnic
This is just past Charleson Park, along the seawall between the Cambie Bridge and Granville Island. It’s an easy 20 minute walk from our house, downhill on the way there, and uphill on the way back. We spent a good part of this past Sunday lounging there with egg salad sandwiches and lemonade and local cherries, happily folded into a summertime cliche. We walked through the docks, found a section of seawall beside this big, bright bed of cosmos, and spent an hour or so looking out into the bay watching the ducks, kayaks and sailboats cruise by and thinking why don’t we do this ALL THE TIME!?
Egg salad sandwiches
Makes 2 sandwiches
4 hard-boiled eggs, chopped (here is how to make them)
1 stalk of celery, finely chopped
1/4 cup finely diced red pepper
1 tablespoon fresh dill
2 tablespoons fresh chives
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon grainy mustard
1/4 cup mayonnaise
Arugula or lettuce leaves
4 slices of bread
Mix together eggs, celery, red pepper, chives, dill, paprika, mustard and mayo. Season with salt and pepper. Layer arugula or lettuce on the bread and top with egg salad. Don’t forget the lemonade!
Garden bouquet
Isn’t it lovely? All picked from my very own garden! I know I will spend the rest of the fall and winter dreaming of this moment of having a vase of fresh cut flowers resting on the patio table on a perfect late summer day.
Late summer flowers
A few photos of flowers blooming in our late summer garden. This is the garden is in its best stage. It feels like it’s finally gotten started – I wish I could keep gardening for another few months! I try not to think about the fact that today someone stumbled across my blog by entering the phrase “first frost calgary” into a search engine! The days are still warm enough to ignore that and to focus instead on documenting this gorgeous time of year that we all have in mind during those other months of planting seeds, choosing perennials, leafing through gardening books and catalogues and dreaming of next year’s garden. (more…)
Seed harvesting begins
Do you harvest the seeds from your plants? I do. I know this sounds like a tedious, painstaking chore, but actually, for the most part, it’s not. And when you compare how easy it is to harvest a handful of seeds to what you would pay at a garden centre for a tiny envelope of those same seeds, it’s an easy and satisfying thing to do. I love walking around the garden in late summer and fall collecting seed pods from the plants. Already I have a stash of small jars starting to fill up with chive, columbine, poppy, tomato and cosmos seeds. Sweet peas and nasturtiums will be next – these are in their peak right now, but it won’t be long before tiny seed pods form in place of the flowers.
Here is a quick outline of a few of the easiest seeds to harvest. It’s probably no coincidence that they are also some of the easiest plants to grow from seeds. (more…)
