Swiss Chard

I had a couple of Swiss Chard make it this summer, and they are always a beautiful addition to the garden, with their shiny green leaves and red veins.

Coleus

This lovely coleus got off to a rough start, but was coaxed back to life with the long stretch of warm weather this summer.  It's enjoying a nice shady spot on the fence under the neighbor's cedar tree.

French Work Table---Pine and Metal

About seven years ago, I found this lovely round dining table and four ladderback chairs.  After I got a new larger dining room set last November, this table ended up in the garage near the laundry room.  Over the last year and this summer, I find many uses for this table--for sorting and folding laundry, for displaying produce, and for sorting apples and corn and other vegetables.  It's kind of a staging area, picking out the ripe fruit that needs to be used in the next day or so, or having a place to remove the corn husks before grilling the cobs in the grill pan.

I couldn't bear to part with it, so I am glad I kept it, and that it turned out to be such a valuable asset for my homemaking and housekeeping tasks.

Farmer Don

Here's the master of this land, posing by his Liberty Apple tree, a gift for his birthday 11 years ago.  It's our finest fruit tree, bought at Flower World.  It has the most beautiful fruit of any tree on the property.

 

 

Tomatoes

I've had one of the largest tomato crops this year, with many different sizes and varieties.  Here are some Health Kick tomatoes and one green Black Seaman tomato, which I hope makes it to it's dark brown color.

One Solitary Pumpkin

Out of all of the pumpkin seeds I planted, I only have ONE pumpkin this year!  It's a beauty, though, perfectly shaped, and starting to turn orange.

Here Comes the Harvest!

In the spring, we plant our seeds and fertilize our trees, hoping for a good and healthy crop of food we can use to sustain our bodies and souls.  In the fall, we get to see the results of all of our hours of labor.  The next few blog entries show some of the fruits and vegetables that persevered and made the journey through rain, cold and wet weather, and all types of pests.

Here are my Scarlet Runner Beans from Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company in Michigan.

 

 

More Trompe l'Oeil in Duvall

Last year, I posted some examples of trompe l'oeil from the Grange Café in Duvall.  In the last few months, new examples of this art form have appeared on the south walls of the café.  Here are my two favorite new works.

Late Summer Hydrangea

This hydrangea did not flower at all last year, and this year, it's starting late but gaining some lovely, large flowers.  The blue color is so vivid against all of the greenery in the yard.

A little history about the hydrangea below.

Native to southern and eastern Asia (from Japan to China, the Himalaya and Indonesia) and North and South America. The flowers are extremely common in the Azores Islands of Portugal, particularly on Faial Island, which is known as the `blue island` due to the vast number of hydrangeas present on the island. In the 18^th century, Hydrangeas were brought to England and they quickly became a very popular flower throughout Europe. 

 

Fuschia in the Back Yard

The fuschia, so named by Plumier (a French botanist) in honour of the botanist Leonhard Fuchs, is a genus of plants of the natural order Onagraceae, characterized by entire, usually opposite leaves, pendent flowers, a funnel-shaped, brightly coloured, quadripartite, deciduous calyx, 4 petals, alternating with the calycine segments, 8, rarely 10, exserted stamens, a long filiform style, an inferior ovary, and fruit, a fleshy ovoid many-seeded berry.  Just looking at a fuschia blossom, you can see that it is a very complex plant.

This lovely fuschia started out about 12 inches all the way around the bowl it is in, and it just kept growing all summer long.  It's in a very shady area of the yard, and it seemed to be the perfect environment for it.

I've never grown such a large fuschia before, and I'm still enjoying its beauty in mid-September.

Thoughts of Autumn

"For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together.  For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad."   Edwin Way Teale, 1899-1980, American naturalist, photographer and author

A whisper of autumn is in the air, even in these sunny, humid last days of summer.  It's a little darker in the morning, and the profusion of root vegetables and apples is a definite sign of the coming new season.  I've gotten out some heavier sweaters and socks, and the evenings are crisp and cool.  The leaves are just beginning to have scarlet tinges to them, and are falling to the ground.

I'm reflecting on the most beautiful summer in my recent memory, with long, sunny days, warm weather, and profuse garden crops. I remember many trips to the beach house, cooking meals with fresh produce, and naps in the afternoon.  My summer books are mostly read, and I enjoyed them all.  The dog had dozens of trips to both new and old parks this summer, and she is fit and trim and happy to go along with us just about anywhere.

Now we turn our efforts to preserving summer' bounty, putting in some autumn crops and planting spring bulbs.  We will be stacking wood, getting the wood stove ready for cold weather, and gathering together.

A Trip to Duvall on Labor Day

The holiday dawned clear and sunny, so we packed up the dog and took the lovely drive to Duvall, east of Maltby.  It's an old town that has seen a renewal, with many new homes among old farms, and a revitalized downtown area.  There are some nice places to eat along the Snoqualmie River (the Grange Café being our favorite place), and McCormick Park is a large expanse of land along the river with many nice trails with good views of the river and the valley.

With a good bookstore and lots of antique shops, we always find something to take home from Duvall.  A couple of books got added to our collection, along with new kitchen canisters and a vintage picture frame.

 

 

 

A Record of Floods of the Snoqualmie River

At McCormick Park in Duvall, there is an interesting exhibit that tracks flood activity over a number of years at that location.

The Last of the Summer Strawberries

The Maltby Market still has home-grown Maltby Strawberries, which are the best berries we've ever had.  They are a new variety for the Pacific Northwest that made their debut last year, and we've enjoyed them for two years now.

Yesterday, I made a batch of freezer jam and a strawberry-rhubarb pie from our Ruby Red Rhubarb in the garden.  The kitchen smelled divine!

 

 

 

 

 

A Slow Food Dinner with Friends

This last week, we invited two couples from church to join us at our home for a Slow Food dinner to celebrate the end of summer, and to enjoy food procured from a 10-mile radius from our home here in Maltby.  The weather was perfect for a summer celebration, and our pine dining table comfortably seated six people.

The menu included steelhead salmon with a chili rub cooked on the grill, along with marinated teriyaki chicken breasts. We had corn on the cob from the Farmer's Market, along with a salad with tomatoes from our garden.  We had homemade rice pilaf and honey cornbread with butter.  Dessert was homemade apple pie (apples from our trees) and Snoqualmie Gourmet Ice Cream.

It was a great time of fellowship over a meal, and provided all of us a chance to get to know each other better.