Mid Summer Garden Pasta Salad

It's the middle of summer and the garden is full of things that need to be picked and eaten. It's also hot out so something cool sounds nice. So, I decided to make my basic pasta salad, leave out the store bought olives and such and instead put in as many things out of the garden I could think of. I had lots of ripe cherry tomatoes, plenty of large sweet onions, the Corno di Toro peppers were starting to turn red, and the broccoli needed picking.  I put it all together and it turned out quite well!

This recipe makes enough for about 6 people.

1 13 oz box of shell pasta (Barilla Whole Wheat)
1/4 cup sweet pickle relish (home made)
1  cup mayonase
30 cherry tomatoes whole or cut in half
1/4 sweet onion minced
1 small or 1/2 large head of broccoli cut into small pieces
2 sweet peppers cut into small chunks
salt and pepper to taste

Cook the pasta until tender and drain. Let cool. Mix everything together. Put in the refrigerator for a few hours to get nice and cold.

30 Years Ago Today

Grapes!

We harvested about 7 bowls of grapes from our Himrod Golden Seedless grape vine this year. Chris pressed all of them and now the juice is fermenting away in gallon jugs. Later, I'll do a post showing the pressing process using his brand new fruit press made from a 12 ton shop press.

Happy Honeybee Day

Today is National Honey bee Day

http://www.nationalhoneybeeday.com/

Thirsty Bees

Honey bees need a good source of water. They need this for more than just hydration of themselves as individuals, they also use water for cooling the hive and for thinning honey to feed brood. The temperature inside the hive has to be constant or the brood will die, so bees have their own form of "swamp cooler". When the hive gets hot, they bring in water and cool the hive through evaporation by fanning their wings.

Fortunately for the bees in the back of my yard, I have several water gardens. The bees can stand on the edge of water lily pads to suck up water. There is also the  "bird bath" I put out years ago, which has become a major watering hole for bees. On hot days there is quite a line up all along the edge. I put rocks in it to help bees get out if they fall in. Bees are very poor swimmers and drown rather quickly if they can't get a hold of something to pull themselves out.

This watering hole is a great place to see the variety of  honey bees from the hives out back and from other places in the surrounding area. Some are the typical golden honey bee with tan fur and some are quite dark with grey fur like the one below. The bee on the left above is almost entirely black.

Beans!

The purple bush beans are Royal Burgundy and the green pole beans are Romano. The bush beans are almost over for the season and the pole beans are just getting started.

The New Crop of Hypertufa Pots

Since hypertufa pots work so well for hardy succulents such as sedum and sempervivum in my climate, I made more this year. Here are the ten pots I have cured so far this year and I have four more curing in water at the moment. I've settled on a favorite recipe of 1 part portland cement, 1 part spagnum peat and 2 parts vermiculite. I like the texture of vermiculite hypertufa over perlite and it seems to cure faster too. I'm switching over from using the bottled cement coloring from Home Depot to powdered coloring from a concrete supply place.
Here are some of them potted up with sempervivum. These poor plants had been waiting years to get out of their small plastic pots.

Sempervivum Glaucum Minor

Sempervivum Pacific Shadows

Sempervivum Grigg's Surprise

Sempervivum Dark Cloud are Larissa which are new this year

Here's some from last year. The pots and the plants came through the winter very well.
Sempervivum Sioux

Sempervivum Red Beauty and an unknown

Sempervivum Pacific Blue Ice

Sempervivum pumilum hepworth, Atroviolaceum and erythraeum

Sempervivum Cebanense