It’s Ready - July 4, 2024 @goldenoakfarm

On Thursday morning, I got up at 5AM and got the post up and the kitchen cleaned up. I was out in the garden by 6:30 when my general helper arrived. We were going to try to weed all the walkways thoroughly so new mulch could be put down.

It went pretty quickly and we finished by 8:30AM, far faster than I had thought.
Notes on the plants:

Feverfew and Butterflyweed: They are just stunning and the butterflies love the orange flowers.

Echinacea purpurea: Lots of huge flowers and more coming. Note the blue of the chicory behind it, but I can’t get that when I try for the flowers.

Fairy and Borage: The borage flowers are in their blue phase, soon to be pink. And again, the camera caught the blue of the chicory…

Red and Lavender Bee Balms: I was trying for the brilliant red, but the lavender photo bombed…

Calendula: I had to deadhead this already. Not so many orange as yellow. I prefer the orange for making things.

Butterfly on oregano

Elecampane: This is doing really well this year. Lots of big flowers.

Boneset: This is covered in tiny flowers and is looking very good.

Chicory: Another attempt at capturing the color…

Arnica: This is doing very well this year, lots of flowers.

Yellow Toothache Plant: I love the eyeball flowers. It’s doing very well and will have attempted world domination by the end of the summer.

So this New Herb garden is as finished as it can be until the mulch arrives in the next few days.

I found all too much bunny poop in this garden. I’m hoping when the mulch covers the fencing up several inches it will stop the incursions.

The camera just doesn’t capture how stunning the color is in the wildflower area. There’s a flock of goldfinches that are loving the seeds in there.

Because we finished so early, I decided to get another job done that had been waiting months: changing over the winter clothes for summer. It took us about 45 minutes to get out one and put the other away in the cedar closet. We finished about 9:45AM.

So while I went to rest awhile, my general helper started feeding the house plants in the office for the first time in a couple months. She managed to get that room’s plants done before she had to go.

My brother was back from work and had said he’d take me shopping. So we hit 3 stores and got all the shopping done. While I put it away he started the potato salad for supper.

source

I could have sworn I found this recipe on here and that it was @sunscape’s recipe but I could not find it anywhere. So I went to Google and found it on The Spruce.

He added more of some things and insisted potato salad had to have hard boiled eggs and paprika, so there it is. He later made hamburgers with brown mustard and Worcestershire sauce topped with melted Havarti cheese.

We had to get a big bunch of fresh dill as none had come up in the gardens this year. I think that’s the first time that has happened in years. So I took the extra and put it in the dehydrator.

I plan to get to bed early because my general helper is coming for 6AM as we have to wash 2 east facing windows before the sun hits them. Then we had 5 west facing windows I hope to get washed and screens into. That will leave 12 windows to finish and 2 doors to clean up.

I hope to be up at 4AM as I have to empty the dehydrator, get the post up, get set up to wash windows, and get the house closed up for the day.