Category: Outdoor Living

A last minute addition to my vegetable garden this season was tomatoes.  Seeing my first ripe, juicy tomato made me realize that I’d reached a summer milestone that is very important to most gardeners.  There are more than 250 varieties of tomatoes.  Did you know that tomatoes support healthy eye sight, cardiovascular health, cancer fighting and more due to a high concentration of nutrients and antioxidants?  I will be utilizing my tomatoes in combination with my jalapeno peppers for salsa.  Sow seeds indoors 6 – 8 weeks before the last frost.  The seeds should germinate in 6 – 14 days.  Plant them  18 – 24 inches apart.  Enjoy!

Over the years I have written numerous articles about and taken several videos of butterflies in flight.  I am always amazed as I witness these beautiful creatures.  This week I noticed one lone butterfly lingering throughout the day. At times I thought I was seeing double but I was not. The single Tiger Swallowtail was now being joined by three others hovering over a patch of delphinium. What a delight! I have never seen this many all at once during any season.  I discovered they are known as Sulphers and are common along roadsides, in fields and in gardens.  They are especially attracted to alfalfa, clovers and other legumes.  Please enjoy the video below, I call it “ Butterfly Madness”.   Cheers!

Today I am feeling very blessed, I have been witnessing a wonderful scene occurring in my garden.  A few seasons ago I wrote about delphinium https://zinniaboy.com/delightful-delphinium/ and now that it is blooming I am witnessing the interaction between flowers and insects. Watch as a butterfly performs the miracle of pollination.  Enjoy!

Where would we be without rain?  Water is necessary for the survival of all living things and without it, we would not exist.   We live on the Big Blue Marble and rain plays a vital role in adding fresh water to our planet.  The science behind the creation of these all important droplets is complex.  Rain can come in many forms. Monsoons and hurricanes represent a worst case scenario, washing away precious resources while beautiful spring rains create crop irrigation and the planets landscape not to mention my all important floral garden!  We have been deprived of this precious resource this season. It has only rained a handful of times leaving zone 4 in a drought.  Once again I am fortunate to have planted drought tolerant flowers like snap dragons, salvia, yarrow and roses. They are providing early blooms for my gardens and as the season progresses my hope is to experience more miraculous rain.

For the last several seasons a mystery flower has appeared in my garden that I have not been able to identify.  The riddle was solved today.  My mystery flower is our featured flower of the month, Flax.  Flax (Linum usitatissimum) is a member of the genus Linum and Linaceae families. It is cultivated for its food and fiber crop.  Textiles made from flax include bed sheets and table linens.  The flax plant is also harvested for its oil known as “linseed oil”.  I planted my seeds in a fertile area of my garden and it produced a plant over two feet tall with continuous blooms for multiple weeks.  Cheers