Pepper Plant, by Babyzilla
Cilantro Blossoms
Rainbow Swiss Chard, Sunset Lettuce, Nasturtiums
Rainbow Chard is so vibrant (and tasty)
Love-in-a-Mist Seed Pod
Love-in-a-mist bloom
Looks predatory: he’s welcome to stay!
“Atlantic Giant” pumpkin plants are getting big! The leaves are like umbrellas for Baby!
Dexie and Baby exploring the garden
Taken at one of the Spy’s games this past week
Pretty Summer Landscape (near Spy Garden)
First Lavender Blossom
Butterfly and Thyme
So long sucker!
“Suckering” tomato plants is when you remove the branch growing in the crook between a leaf and the stalk.
Eggplant Blossom
Dexie’s Best Friend
Playing?
…or is it destroying?!
Raining outside, painting inside
Little Paintings
Many of the plants are now taller than Baby.
Spy Garden Backyard (looking down towards the firepit)
Mowing the lawn!
Kale Chip
The Spy loves kale chips and one of the things that often leads people (in internet world) to Spy Garden is this Russian Red/Ragged Jack kale chip post (that someone “pinned” on Pinterest). So here’s another kale chip recipe, with a different variety of kale: Tronchuda.
He likes them so much he wanted to design our own bag for them!
(That drawing at the bottom is the shapes of the garden plots: not including the teepee area or the new pumpkin patch)
Spy Garden Kale Chips
Yummy!
They are so easy to make. Toss with a little olive oil, salt and pepper, spread out on a sheet and bake on 200 or less for 20 minutes or so until they are dried out and crispy.
Tronchuda Kale Chip
Your little girl under the pumpkin leaves – it doesn’t get much cuter, does it? And I never knew that a plant as exotic and strange as the Love-in-a-Mist exists, your images of the seed pod and flower look so great!
The Love-in-a-mist is actually native to Europe! It is also called nigella. So keep your eyes peeled, there may be some growing in your area!
I read a most interesting post on how you can actually plant out those suckering parts of the tomato that you have pinched out. They will grow like cuttings apparently. You can get lots more tomato bang for your buck
I take it you get a lot of summer rain in Spy Garden? Lucky you!
Never heard of Tronchuda kale but it looks like it doesn’t have all of those crenelations running through it and would be more like spinach in texture? That bag of kale chips does look delicious…and healthy. If you can get your kids to eat delicious AND healthy you win! Great photo shoot and excellent recipe. Now where on EARTH am I, going to find, Tronchuda kale?!
Yes I have seen that you can do that with those suckers…alas, I have around 20 plants and am calling it good and hoping we do get tomato bang for our buck this year. This year, yes, we have gotten glorious amounts of rain (so far). The last 2 years were pretty bad droughts. Surely you can find a flatter leafed kale? The “Russian Red’ that I grew last year was also pretty flat.
Kale isn’t the amazeballs you-beaut thing that you guys in the U.S. love over here in the far flung gulag Antipodean archepelego’s. We can get curly, more curly and red curly and that’s about it. Same goes for packets of seeds…curly and curly2 ;)
Your garden is looking so productive – despite the dogs and Babyzilla! You are so more patient than I ever was with my kids and dogs. Sigh, but that’s another story. Best wishes to Smoochie on Father’s Day! As an aside, I tried to get my spouse to build plank chairs like yours, but no avail. We ended up with store-bought Andirondacks…better than nothing, I suppose. ;-)
Thanks! Though the dogs (at least when they are together…i.e. when Spy Sister is over) are officially forbidden from the garden now. Dexie is fine on her own but add the wild romping and wrestling with Maggie and they beat Babyzilla in destructive powers by a mile! The good thing is they don’t even go in the garden (unless we are in there) so we just avoid it when they’re out…At least you have a new place to sit outside, which is always good, homemade or not!
Such a wonderful garden. Just love how you call your little girl baby, too cute!!
She still seems like a baby to us! Though I suppose eventually we will have to come up with a new blog-name for her ;) Thanks for commenting!