What's outside of your picture window today?

Just a glimpse of what is outside of our windows! Have a great Sunday!

Rain, it is finally raining; We have a drought and very high temperatures!

Oooh yes we had that two days ago, it was wonderful wonderful wonderful 💖
The drought is terrible, everything is brown and there is the danger of salination in the soil. It's all so bad. i do what I can but often feel so powerless. So few insects nowadays, birds are hungry, fewer seeding and so on. Sigh.

Cute little frog (or toad?). We have tons of fireflies at night. At first I thought my vision was going weird or I was having an unusual optical migraine when I first moved here but then remembered these little guys from growing up in Michigan and our dog
trying to figure out where they went when the light goes out, lol.

Check out my sunflowers and they’re not even in bloom yet!
After 3 years post transplant, I’m finally able to be back playing in the dirt (with a mask on) But I’m so happy to be gardening again. The Black-eyed Susan’s make their own sunshine. ☺️

@loribmt You have great gardens. My daughter lives in the city but she has a courtyard with a small section built up with dirt in it so she started gardening last year and was surprisingly successful at it. Of course she thoroughly researched growing the vegetables she planted before she started. So this year she started a tomato plant for me and a cucumber plant. They are in those burlap type of pots but have grown very well. The tomatoes are tiny but abundant. The cucumbers have not shown themselves yet nor have my daughters so we are thinking there may have been something wrong with the seeds or seedlings -- I'm not sure which way she started them.
The picture was early in the season last year.
JK

Do you eat the sunflowers' seeds? If so, how do you extract them and do you have to do anything to them before eating them. I love the taste of them but can only find salty processed ones in the store. My brother had a Shetland sheepdog who went nuts for sunflower and pumpkin seeds but we have 'deshell' the seeds for him first. That was a real labor of love given the human time it took to make a little pile of seeds versus the canine nanosecond it took McDuff to swallow it.

Thank you, JK. I’m so happy to be gardening again. There’s nothing like watching those little seedlings grow and flourish.
Your daughter caught the gardening bug! Haha I love to hear that! She sounds like she’s really enjoying being able to grow her own veggies and it’s proof you don’t need to have large gardens to be rewarded with tasty offerings!

That’s disappointing about the cucumbers. Wow, those things usually grown uncontrollably once they start. Though I know a couple of years ago, our neighbor here in WI and my daughter, who lives in MN were both struggling with their cucumber plants. Not sure if it’s seeds or growing conditions? But this year, wow, the cukes in our garden are going crazy. The broccoli, well, that was apparently was planted solely for the benefit of bunnies, 🐰 😕

Enjoy your tomatoes! They’re so yummy fresh off the vines. I found this really good recipe that uses up those cherry tomatoes! We’ve had it a couple of times. If you try the recipe, let me know how you like it.
https://www.marthastewart.com/341383/cherry-tomato-crisp

I love sunflowers seeds but tend to just buy the commercially grown and leave mine in the garden for critters. The birds and squirrels are so fun to watch!

When we bought our first house in the mid 70s, the former owners had an enormous garden, over a 1/4 acre. We were way overzealous in planting that first year!! 😄 Learned our lesson on that experiment. Our garden was reduced over the years as our enthusiasm and free time waned.

That first year, I grew sunflowers for the purpose of harvesting. They were so beautiful and the heads were huge! I was so excited to grow my own. That was a short-lived venture! It was a constant fight between keeping them safe from birds and squirrels, and then once they were dry they were incredibly difficult to harvest the seeds. It wasn’t worth the effort! But I still enjoy having ‘em in the garden but they’re exclusively entertainment for me, and food for the critters.
Try a health food store for your unsalted seeds if you can’t find them in the grocery store. Also, I know Amazon gets a bad rap, but they are available to order through them. You can also talk to the produce person at your grocery store. Often they order or stock foods for people with special requests. I’ve gotten our grocer to carry unsalted pistachios!

Aww, the story of McDuff and the seeds is so sweet! I can just picture this as the dog sat patiently waiting for each little seed like it was an offering from the gods. I’m such a softy for doggos… Our last Golden was a hoot! He loved green beans! He would actually go to the garden and harvest beans for himself! We had pole beans with a small fence to keep out the rabbits. He’d patrol that area to keep the bunnies out and then help himself to some beans! They had to be just the right size before he’d select them too. Weird dog. 😅. Here’s a picture of him snacking (2010). That garden and our sweet dog are long gone.

@loribmt That recipe sounds yummy. I will definitely try it. The tomatoes from my plant are the tiniest cherry tomatoes I have seen. My husband and I both love cherry tomatoes used in sheet pan dinners though so I'm sure we will like that.

Last year my daughter did have abundant cucumbers, her whole garden grew like crazy - tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers, both hot and sweet. She's had less success with flowers though. I don't have a good picture of her garden by the time things were really thriving but it was like a jungle. Neither my husband nor I enjoy gardening so she must get it from her grandfathers, they both enjoyed it.
JK