Cutting Garden

I have always enjoyed reading about and seeing different cutting gardens and I was determined this year to start a small one. These are the steps.....

My goal was to have a garden I could cut bouquets from..........

First we dug out an area and added compost.....

Then Filaberto made an edging from old slate tiles

Then in early spring I planted hundreds of seeds

With lots of water

And weeding

Bouquet!!!!!!!

Stormy Weather

A few weeks ago we had a terrible storm in Raleigh.  I was at the farm and Charlie was at the hospital in Raleigh. Our beautiful old red oak in our backyard went down taking the garden pavilion and part of our garage with it. Luckily no one was hurt but what a mess and  what a project! 

This is the Garden Pavilion ready for it's closeup in Country Living Magazine

AFTER

Aftermath of the storm

Happy Fourth of July

Holiday means festive eating -we love my sister-in-law Debbie's Oriental Chicken salad. Perfect for a hot day like the Fourth!

Digging in on the fourth

Recipe for oriental chicken salad

Grill 4 chicken breasts in oven and dice when cool.
2 packages of angel hair cole slaw
2 packages  of Ramen Chicken noodles
1 package sliced almonds
4 green onions chopped
Roast noodles and almonds in oven at 350 till brown about 10 minutes

Dressing
2 tbsp sugar
6 red wine vinegar
1 tbsp black pepper
1 tbsp  salt
2 seasoning packets from the noodles
1 cup roasted peanut oil

Mix dressing and pour on to chicken, cole slaw and green onions.
Then top with noodles and almonds- mix thoroughly

Sweet Dreams

The lavender is in full bloom!  Which means it truly is summer.  I can't wait to start making sachets for the linen closet with my bounty of lavender.  

One of the hens is interested in the harvest. 

One of the confederates joins in... 

I place the finished bundles on top of fresh linens and pillow cases.

I have a huge collection of vintage embroidered linens.
A large amount of my collection consists of linens from by grandmother, Etsie.