Easy Recipes From The Garden

I love having fresh flowers in vases scattered throughout the house, but many times it means hacking away all the flowers in my garden and not being able to enjoy them outside.

A good solution to this is a cutting garden. Many common varieties of flowers make excellent candidates for a cutting garden. Check out this list of 45 fantastic cut flowers at Organic Gardening. Simply plant extra of the flowers you wish to cut to avoid having bare spots when you do pick flowers, or separate the plants you have and place them into a separate garden designated as a cutting garden, and get cutting!

While I’m still coming to terms with the fact that it is already July (where do the days go?), it’s time to start thinking about mid-summer gardening to-dos.

My gardening to dos are as follows:

• Water all containers regularly.
• Prune and deadhead all perennials to stimulate further blooms.
• Pull spent annuals and replace with fall bloomers such as mums.
• Weed, weed, weed.
• Pull the lettuce that’s bolted and sow some new seeds.
• Keep picking raspberries and strawberries, keeping an eye out for evidence of pests.
• Divide the bearded iris before they take over everything.
• Prune and fertilize roses.
• Keep checking on those tomato plants, watering regularly and watching for any color (other than green, of course) on the fruit.
• Keep cutting and using the herbs in the garden to encourage further growth.
• Enjoy my garden! As fast as summer arrived, fall will be here and the temperatures won’t be nearly as friendly and encouraging for outdoor activities.

What’s on your to-do list this month?

I love to put a new spin on a classic. So when I was planning my Fourth of July centerpiece, my mind wandered to all the flowers and plants growing in the flower beds around our house and in the garden. I was reluctant to simply pick a few flowers and put them in a vase - where was the creativity in that? - when I thought of something I had seen in a flower shop a while back. The florist had taken ordinary daisies and dyed the petals in pretty colors.

They’re super simple to make, and a fun project for both adults and kids. Simply pick some daisies and put them in a vase (a different vase for each color). Add fresh water to the vase, then a few drops of liquid food coloring in the desired color. Leave overnight, and by morning your daisies’ petals should have taken on the color of the dyes.