Artichoke

An artichoke flower

Artichokes ..ready to be eaten

A couple of artichokes from the garden. The flower looks interesting too...

How to eat artichokes : follow this link.

Tomatoes

The first big tomatoes (Early Girl variety) are ripe today. For the last couple of weeks we have been getting the salad tomatoes (Sweet 100 variety). It is only this week that we can get a handful of them off from a couple of cherry tomato plants. They are delicious:

Gloriosa Daisy

Finally, one of them emerged out of the crowd of zinnia and marigold flowers.
What a beautiful flower... I am going to grow more of these for sure in the years to come.

A Humming bird was taking nectar from the Gladiolis flower while I was working in the garden today. Have started training the nasturtium to climb up on a string in the patio. A few tomatoes and cucumbers are ripe now. Also, the bell peppers are ready to eat. Enjoyed a couple of squash during the last camping trip to Lake Tahoe area. They go well with stir fried vegetables along with bell peppers.

Coopers Hawk

It is almost a year since the two baby Coopers Hawks visited our garden with their parents. They used to sit on the fence and use a ladder to hop up and down to the grassy area where the parents would teach them how to catch garden lizards. Since then, we have seen a good decline in the garden lizards around our yard. This is a picture from last year..

I will post a video later of the Hawks playing in the garden.

I think there is a little rat in the claws of the Hawk. I am not sure..

Blue Jay

There are more birds who love to eat the lawn seeds. I don't feel too bad about letting the lawn dry this year. Anyway, California is going through another drought season.

This blue bird, I think it is a blue jay (or a scrub jay?) , spent a couple of hours this morning feeding on the lawn seeds from the last cutting.

Sparrow on the Mailbox

It was a nice sight to behold this Sunday morning. About 20 house-sparrows were in a feeding frenzy for the seeds from dry cut lawn next to the mail box. They were playing a game to fly and occupy the vantage point on the mailbox.

Blackberry

I thought this was another vine of raspberry. It turned out to be a blackberry. I have no idea how it was planted here in this part of the garden among the raspberry vines. I suspect one of the frequent birds that comes here to eat the raspberries. The good thing about having blackberry in the garden is, it is just starting to produce blackberry fruits when the raspberry season is at its tail end.

Blackberry was used by the Greeks and the native American tribes for its medicinal properties. Not only the fruit is edible, the leaves, the roots and shoots can be used for medical uses. I hope to learn more about this interesting and useful plant.

Following is an excerpt from this website.

Blackberries were in olden days supposed to give protection against all 'evil runes,' if gathered at the right time of the moon. Since ancient Greek physicians prescribed the herb for gout, the leaves, roots, and even berries have been employed as a medicinal herb. The most common uses were for treating diarrhea, sore throats, and wounds. Native Americans made fiber, obtained from the stem, it was used to make a strong twine. Another use was as a huge barricade around the village made of piles of the thorny canes, for protection from 4 and 2 legged predators. A purple to dull blue dye is obtained from the fruit.

credit for the history of blackberry: www.altnature.com/gallery/Blackberry.htm