Catching up!

It's been a while! Things have been busy the past couple of weeks - 4th of July weekend, then my husband's family came for a visit and we went to see the Yankees and the Mets, and had a really enjoyable visit! So now I'm trying to catch up a bit with the blog, here goes.

Remember that strange looking thing I showed you last time? Here is what it is - a voodoo bulb! Have you ever seen one bloom? Or smelled one. It's nasty. Next year I'll take a picture of it blooming. We have two of these that Mom brought us, one one each side of the fireplace. I like the tropical look they give the beds!



Okay, so these are from the end of June, but thought you'd like to see all the basil we had then, and the result - yum, pesto!





Back to flowers!

We planted spider flowers from seed, but they haven't taken off like I had hoped. They are blooming, though.



The hosta are blooming and look great in front of the shed.



The phlox and echinacea are blooming. I'm still waiting for that big patch of phlox in the middle to bloom, I can't decide if it's the white one I planted when we first got the house, or one I picked up at a plant sale last year.



The sunflowers out front are blooming. These are all the result of seeds that fell from the sunflowers we planted last year. There are tomato plants there, too. Yes, tomato plants in the front of the house. We planted a random, leftover cherry tomato plant there last year and on one day I picked 167 tomatoes! Yes, 167! Apparently they like this spot, because there are 4 or 5 plants that grew from tomatoes that dropped last year, plus we planted a couple of new ones.



I love the pollen on the leaf: