This Week's Favourite Things! Monday August 17th - Sunday August 23rd.

1.  My artist friend Evgenia Makogon's new website: www.evgeniamakogon.com  Awesome paintings on an awesome site! and she built the website herself with no experience! Woah!

2. Speaking of cheerful Russians our first Giant Russian Sunflower opened up this past week 

3.  Gardener Sweetheart Tomatoes, seeds from Annapolis Seeds.  This is a really delicious large, heart shaped cherry tomato

4.  Sequoia Bush Beans, seeds from Annapolis Seeds.  Never tried growing these before but they're a tasty bush bean with silky dark purple pods, bright green inside.  A good looking plant too, with dark purple stems and pretty purple flowers.

 

 

5.  Scarlet Runner bean flowers, needless to say the garden is full of hummingbirds. All the little yellow flowers are going to be humboldtii tomatoes soon!



6.  This gigantic winter squash plant that decided to take over part of the garden.  It's huge, and goes from the back fence in a few different directions, that's a summer squash plant in front though. Still not sure what this monster plant is, but whatever it grows we're saving the seeds.    



7. Homemade herbal tea!  This is easy, fun and cheaper than paying 5 - 6 bucks a box for good tea, I started dehydrating stuff like: nasturtium leaves and flowers, mint, sage, lavender, anise hyssop, chamomile, lemon balm, wild sweet fern and making my own tea blend.  It's nice.  The different plants have different medicinal qualities.  Eg, sage tea is good for hot flashes and a bunch of other stuff.

Some chamomile and lemon balm planted this year

8.  15 Traits of People Pleaser Syndrome in 15 Minutes - youtube video by Spartan Life Coach

9. 5 Tips to Stop Over Thinking to Prevent Anxiety and Panic Attacks - youtube video by Infinite Waters

10.  This article on tough love and enabling.

11. Home made vegan ice cream: shake up 2 cans of coconut milk ( we get a brand that doesn't have crap in it), pour in a pot, mash up a few ripe bananas, add blueberries, cardamom, cinnamon, shredded coconut, whatever, cocoa is good too, mash in some honey, stick in 2 quart ice cream maker and it turns into "I can't believe it's not ice cream"! It's nice.  The cocoa version passed a taste test for a human that loathes bananas.