abhege said:I don't like kale but I loved the Med. Kale bread, toasted. I also make the potato, sausage, kale soup like Olive Garden. Just tasted kale chips for the first time a few weeks ago. I could eat them but they still taste too "green" to me. But I keep trying to find ways to eat it.


We ate our first beans tonight, Royal Burgundy. Someone told me to put a bit of vinegar in the water to retain the purple color. Not! But it gave the beans and interesting flavor and we didn't use butter, salt and pepper like usual.

Nothing is going to make me like Kale.

Never would have thought to vinegar in the bean water.

I wish purple beans stayed purple when they are cooked.

Newyorkrita said:

A very impressive plant sale.

Your own planted garden looks great also. Must be great to have it all done and the sale be history for now. What a relief.

I only wish I was done----still have to get all of the perennials planted, and get the drip irrigation set up for the earthboxes, raised beds and cutting garden. No rest for the weary

mom2goldens said:

I only wish I was done----still have to get all of the perennials planted, and get the drip irrigation set up for the earthboxes, raised beds and cutting garden. No rest for the weary

No rest for any gardener.

Your garden looks great and the plant sale displays are very impressive!

Hiss, boo to HOA's. So glad not to live in an area with them.

This made me happy to see today. I'm really behind this year and haven't direct sewn anything and the hot sun has pretty much baked all of my seedlings that I worked so hard to cultivate the last few months :(. ..so knowing that my strawberries are doing great helps body my spirits. (As long as the slugs don't get to all of them.)

@DogsNDaylilies, I gave up on strawberries. I could control the slugs with snail-bait, but it was so much trouble to net them all to keep the birds from getting to them. Birds also like to snack on my almost-ripe tomatoes.

Ditto @drdawg. Last year the birds left the tomatoes alone that I grew in the rose garden so that's where I'm growing them this year, along with a few in another garden, surrounded by red dahlias that I hope will confuse them. I know, I live in Dreamland, USA.

My garden is a bird haven but they never bother my tomatoes. In fact if I even get hornworms the birds help me out by finding and eating them.

Now slugs is another story. I am over run with slugs.

It was mainly the crows dive bombing the tomatoes to get some moisture. It didn't matter that we've had three birdbaths, the tomatoes tasted better. Not as many slugs as years ago. They seem to hide out at the black plastic edging and I'm equipped with my scissors.

I have a family of Carolina Wrens that live in my tomato plants and do not bother the tomatoes but do eat a lot of the bugs.

Newyorkrita said:My garden is a bird haven but they never bother my tomatoes. In fact if I even get hornworms the birds help me out by finding and eating them.

Now slugs is another story. I am over run with slugs.

Same here -- all of the above!

But, if crows are the main culprit, maybe that's why I don't have a problem... can't remember the last time I've seen any crows, although we have plenty of ravens.

Picked a half gallon of peas, and more squash are up. The beans look nice. More tomato blossoms. Still need to mulch the beds. Next fall I'm doing leaves, I'm sure.

@mom2goldens, that was amazing!! People must love those sales.

I guess the birds simply have a taste for the varieties I grow.

The crows were the reason my husband built the "tomato room" portion of the old vegetable garden. It worked well until a heavy winter snow weighed too heavily on the mesh, which caved in the copper piping. That spelled the end of gardening for Jack - too upsetting.

I don't have crows here either and I am glad of that as they give me the creeps!!

I wish I had Carolina Wrens around most of the time. I have seen them pas thru but they don't stay. Maybe because I have a nesting pair of House wrens,.

lovesblooms said:Picked a half gallon of peas, and more squash are up. The beans look nice. More tomato blossoms. Still need to mulch the beds. Next fall I'm doing leaves, I'm sure.

Peas, so nice to have fresh garden peas. I hope we get a nice crop before the hot weather. So far lots of blossoms and I am impatiently waiting.

Tomato blossoms only starting here, mostly just see the buds.

Otherwise yup, squash plants and bean plants growing. Cucumbers and eggplant growing nicely also.

lovesblooms said:

@mom2goldens, that was amazing!! People must love those sales.

drdawg said:I guess the birds simply have a taste for the varieties I grow.

Not good!!

pirl said:The crows were the reason my husband built the "tomato room" portion of the old vegetable garden. It worked well until a heavy winter snow weighed too heavily on the mesh, which caved in the copper piping. That spelled the end of gardening for Jack - too upsetting.

It sure did look nice and orderly.

I'd rather have anything but this as I was waiting for my first cup of coffee this morning!


As ugly as the deer netting looks, it keeps the deer out of the terrace gardens. Roses were the choice breakfast item today!