It's been hot and humid here and apparently the garden loves it!

I planted three cucumber plants and they are going wild. I canned 6 quarts of dill pickles yesterday from the garden. We've been eating cucumber and onion salad for a few weeks now. Some of my onions are getting very large. My garlic is almost ready to harvest as well. Our lettuce has produced quite a bit...it's leaf lettuce. And finally, we've gotten a few cherry tomatoes. I've missed the distinct flavor of homegrown tomatoes. I did get a few peas, but I didn't plant enough. So far we've had three good "messes" of green beans which is glorious as well. The radishes earlier in the season were yummy as well. 

Our local Tractor Supply Store was selling out onion sets and small plants for 25 cents each. I bought two geranium plants, three packages of onion sets, and two blueberry plants. I've already planted a bag of the onion sets. I don't kow if the blueberry plants will come around, but figure for 50 cents, I'm not out much if they don't. I know it will be a few years before they would produce, but I've decided gardeners are eternal optimists. 

A couple of months ago one of the county extensions had a class on herb gardening. I asked DH's daugher if she wanted to attend and she did. It was free. I figured we'd get information and maybe a herb to bring home. We not only got a lot of information, we got a two tiered stackable planter and a variety of herbs to plant in it. Mine is sitting on the back deck. I used the dill yesterday for the pickles. I cut basil the other day when I made spaghetti. I've also grown a few herbs from seeds. I plan on starting to dry some soon to have during the winter and spring.

We have some wild blackberries. Last year we didn't get many because it got really dry early in the season. We had plenty of rain, but we aren't getting very many this year either. I've picked what I can and I made some jam. 

One of the cucumbers was hiding and turned yellow. I had it sit on the counter for a bit and yesterday cut it open and pulled all the seeds out to dry. Hopefully I will be able to plant them next year to start my garden inside. Five of my tomato plants and two of my bell pepper plants I planted from seed this year. I was thinking about it while I was working with the cucumber seeds, that some libraries have a seed exchange program. Our little library is pretty cool about doing stuff, so I emailed the director to ask her if she thought they might do that since this would be the time to ask people to save seeds. 

After all this, I am discouraged though. I've planted watermelon seeds three times and none of them have come up. I've planted lavender various times this spring and summer and no dice there either. The same is true with lemon balm. I really wanted lavender and lemon balm for the pollinators. 

Beware, I'm starting this as a bit of a rant...we have noticed that some of the young people in our lives are not good about thanking us for birthday/Christmas/graduation gifts. I'm not expecting a huge thank you note, but a text or phone call or email would be appreciated. I'm not talking about a small gift like a candle; I'm talking about a large amount of money. The checks were cashed, but we did not hear from them at all. 

Fast forward to this May and June...a friend's twins graduated from college. Each graduated from a differrent school. We sent a check to each and my husband made each of them a Christmas ornament with a graduation cap, their name, and the year. We received a thank you note from each. A real snail mail one in fact. It meant a lot. The sad thing is these kids probably aren't going to get anything else from us unless they pursue another degree because we aren't really close so it wasn't like they had an excuse to write in hopes of further gifts. Another friend wrote a thank you note to us because we treated him to a meal. So, in the span of two weeks we received three thank you notes. It was wonderful!

Being the frugal (or cheap if you want) person I am, I decided to figure out a way to recycle the fronts of the cards. I bought some cards and envelopes at the dollar store and so I cut the fronts to fit on the front of the empty cards. I decorated them with a few things that I have since I make many of my own cards. I like the idea of reusing the fronts of the cards. 

It was a good exercise getting to work on these because our "craft" room (read craft, but really it's a room with lots of uses) is in the basement and it's cool there. We are under quite a heat wave here in Central Illinois.

Hope you all have a great 4th of July if you are American as we celebrate the 250th anniversary. I've had the privlege of celebrating both the 200th and now the 250th anniversary.