gifts from the garden

there has truly been no shortage of tomatoes in the garden this season, and i say keep 'em coming! i love fresh tomatoes, and this year we will learn how to freeze and can them so that we can make use of them over the winter. it's a good thing that toasted tomato sandwiches are one of my favourites, and matt loves his fried green! 

 i'm excited about the sunflowers this year. for some reason i never tried them until now, and they are certainly the biggest thing i have ever grown from seed. the biggest sunflower towers over me, and it's not even flowered yet! this one along the back bed i snapped a shot of as it's starting to bud, and i noticed after the fact that there's an enormous daddy long legs just hanging out on one of the leaves.

here's something that we weren't expecting, i was told by other tenants of the house that the grape vine along the back fence hasn't produced fruit in years. so i was surprised to find a few bunches hanging out on the vines. i was happy enough to have it as a wind block and a privacy screen, plus the vines are a lot more pleasing to the eye than the car lot on the other side of the chain link fence.

every day there's something new to discover in the garden. just having a garden is a gift of it's own, but it's an amazing feeling knowing that you can have something beautiful to enjoy, and it will feed you too. my partner agrees:)

sprouts of sunshine.

i'm horrible at starting things from seed. especially in trays. especially indoors! if it can go right in the ground i'm alright but otherwise... i need some practice. so when i set out a huge tray of seeds out back, i wasn't sure if anything would go, and it was a pleasant surprise after a couple big rains to find sprouts!

this lovely array of seeds were donated by various friends who had left overs, or nowhere to grow them.. i happily adopted them. wasn't sure if i could make them grow, but free seeds are better to try my luck than ones i've had to pay for. so! here goes...

sunnn! sunflower sprouts look so happy.. maybe because as soon as they sprout they're already huge! if these things make it to fullness, they'd be the biggest things i ever successfully grow from seed. they were so easy to start, i'll probably try a few more when i return from down south.

as an added bonus, the lupins sprouted. i love lupins, they're beautiful flowers.. they remind me of taking trips through northern ontario. they should have been started indoors weeks before frost, and delicately transplanted. but here i have started them in peat trays outdoors, on a repurposed trampoline turned planting table.

it will be interesting to see what makes it all the way, i hope more sprouts appear! we've also seen the cucumber seeds break the surface. still waiting on various herbs like mint and sage, and a couple other flowers and veggies. stay tuned!