Hi there! I’m back to talk about garlic some more. Where I left off in the last post, I told you about previous garlic harvests, the 2023 garlic harvest doing poorly in those raised beds, and that we were wondering where to plant garlic in the fall to have better results.

We ended up doing something we had never done before, and that was to plant garlic in pots! It was a curious idea to me at first, I just had never thought of doing that, but it turned out to be a great way for us to grow our garlic.

We bought some large pots at a nearby garden center, and planted the garlic in those because of the issues we had previously with drainage in certain raised beds during the rainy winter season.

We decided to put the pots of garlic in the greenhouse for the winter to better regulate the amount of water and nutrients we wanted them to be getting.

The garlic did so well in pots in the greenhouse that we plan to grow them the same way this year!

We plant our garlic in the fall, and then harvest it the following summer. First we harvest the garlic scapes, and then the garlic bulbs. (Luckily, the garlic bulbs are ready just in time for cucumber season, when we start making lots of pickles with garlic! Perfect timing for fresh basil and pesto making too!)

The variety we grew this time around was called German Extra Hardy. When we went to purchase garlic locally where we usually get it, we found the garlic all sold out, and searched online until we found another similar variety. When we came across German Extra Hardy Garlic from Annie’s Heirloom Seeds, we decided to give that a try for the first time.

Once again, we chose a variety with large cloves (our favorite), but I think the cold hardiness of the variety ended up being a good thing as well. Last winter was a cold one here, and growing the garlic in pots made it more susceptible to cold temperatures as well. (Also- the lower greenhouse where we plant the garlic is more of a high tunnel, open on both ends, and is in a spot that gets pretty cold on the property.)

After last year’s poor garlic harvest, it made us even more grateful for a good garlic harvest this year. And it was a beautiful harvest! (The last two pictures show the pink blush on the bulbs after they cure a bit.)

If you would love to grow garlic, but have been imagining large farms and large fields to do so (and that’s not the space you have to work with)- I hope hearing about growing garlic in pots will give you some inspiration to see what you could grow in the space you have available.

I wish I had pictures of growing the garlic in pots to share here with you, but plan to do so the next time we grow garlic to share more of the process.

Okay, garlic lovers- tell me, do you grow garlic? What are your favorite varieties and places to purchase your garlic? Have you ever tried growing garlic in pots before?

As I was coming here to share about the garlic we grew this year, I realized I hadn’t shared about garlic harvests in a few years. The pictures above are from our garlic harvest in 2022. We grew a variety called Music that year that we bought from a farming friend. (Jeff’s first question: does it have large cloves?)

When we looked up Music Garlic, we read it was a good producer, had a good shelf life for that type garlic, and that the taste was medium hot with a true garlic flavor. Sounded good…

The results? We were pleased with it. We liked the flavor and the size of the cloves were great too, so overall it was a variety we liked. (Though, let’s be honest…. have I ever tried garlic I haven’t liked the taste of? Nope. I love garlic, and haven’t met one yet I didn’t like.)

Jeff has always preferred the garlic with the large cloves, that are easier to peel. After comparing the different kinds, I prefer them too. (If you’ve ever spent lots of time peeling teeny, tiny garlic cloves you know.)

Since we like the large, easy to peel cloves, we choose the Hardneck Garlic varieties to grow. The Softneck Garlic varieties are the ones known for being good keepers for longer storage, but there are lots of small cloves per bulb. We really do like how easy to peel the larger cloves are!

In the fall of 2022 we planted two varieties we hadn’t tried before. I would tell you what we thought of those varieties, but the garlic harvest in 2023 was our worst yet and the puny bulbs were not a good representation of those varieties.

We had planted that garlic in some raised beds we grow in during the summer, but that we hadn’t done much overwintering gardening in before. The drainage was just fine with the amount of watering we did in the summertime, but we learned that with the heavy rains of winter (our winters are very rainy here) the raised beds became waterlogged and the garlic struggled.

The raised beds are full of good soil, but underneath is clay. (One of the reasons we grow in raised beds in our garden.) I should add that we’ve grown garlic in other raised beds in our garden without a problem, but those particular beds didn’t work well.

That’s the thing with gardening- no matter how many years you’ve grown something- there are always new things to learn. You can grow things again and again, and then have a surprise… you can have years with abundant harvests and then years when a crop is a total flop.

We learned from our experience and didn’t plant those beds with garlic again last fall. We were not sure where to plant the garlic, and talked about options. It’s one thing to plant a packet of seeds and not have the plants do well, but buying garlic bulbs for planting costs a good amount of money. (I was a bit shocked at the prices the last time we ordered some.) That, and we do love our garlic around here, and wanted to grow the most abundant harvest we could.

We ended up trying something new, and I’ll share all about that with you in the next post about this year’s garlic harvest.

Until then… Do you grow garlic? Do you grow the Softneck Garlic or Hardneck Garlic? Or both? Do you have any favorite garlic varieties?

Life is such a gift, isn’t it?

Most of the time we don’t pause to let that truth sink in, we wake up each day and we take our time on earth for granted.

We don’t always realize or remember just how very precious our time here is. This truth has been in my heart lately.

I know it’s been said so many times before. And it feels a bit cliché to say “tell the people you love that you love them,” but I want to say it again anyway.

I’m writing this because I need to hear these words, and perhaps some of you might need to hear them too.

Think for a moment about someone in your life who really pushes your buttons and drives you nuts sometimes. Now imagine that you have a very limited time with that person… would it change your feelings towards them?

Would you act differently? Or respond to the triggers differently? Would it change what you say to them?

Let that sink in for a moment.

Isn’t it amazing how even thinking about having limited time can completely shift the perspective, and help us see the bigger picture?

Now think about someone you adore and hold dear. If you had limited time to spend with them, how would you want to spend it?

Is there anything you would want to say to them if you knew it was the last time you would be able to do so?

How much would you treasure one last hug? Or being able to tell them how much they mean to you?

Life is always changing, and things can change so quickly at times. We don’t know how much time we, or anyone else, has on this earth.

My intention in writing this is not to cause fear or anxiety, but simply to shine some love on our awareness of what a precious gift life is, as well as the time we have with the people in it.

I love simple discoveries in the kitchen that can make regular meals feel different and new.

That’s how I felt recently when I tried soaking oats in sourdough starter for the first time.

I soak oats overnight before I cook them in the morning. Soaking grains beforehand makes them easier for our bodies to digest, and makes the nutrients they contain more available.

Most of the time I’ve soaked oats in water, but have also tried whey and yogurt. Being a lover of sourdough, when I heard about soaking oats in sourdough starter, I was intrigued and wanted to try it.

And you know what? I loved the tangy flavor it added to the oatmeal!

If you love sourdough and you love oatmeal, you just might love this combination. That’s why I wanted to mention it here, so you can enjoy sourdough oatmeal in your kitchen too.

To make it, I simply use enough starter to cover the oats, then let them soak overnight. (The longer you let the oats soak in the sourdough starter, the stronger the sourdough “tang” will be.) Then I cook the oats like usual in the morning.

If you happen to eat gluten-free and you feel like the sourdough oatmeal party is one you don’t get to join, you’ll be glad to know we make ours gluten-free. We purchase gluten-free oats and I use a gluten-free sourdough starter that I feed with brown rice flour.

If you are making sourdough in your home, and wondering what to do with your “discard” starter when you are not using your starter up fast enough, this recipe is a great way to use up your discard starter!

The sourdough tang already makes the oatmeal feel a bit more special, and I found that adding some edible flowers on top made it feel even more so. I told you last year how much we were loving adding edible flowers to our meals.

That beautiful breakfast pictured above of Sourdough Oatmeal was sprinkled with cinnamon, and topped with sliced strawberries and borage flowers from the garden.

Sometimes I’m hungry and just want to get to eating a bowl of hot cereal, and other times I’ll take a few more minutes to turn a regular meal into a work of art. I guess I look for any excuse to add more flowers to meals- why not flowers on oatmeal too?

Other things we enjoy on our oatmeal are butter or coconut oil, maple syrup or honey, dried currants or other dried fruit, and shredded coconut. It’s also delicious with some milk poured over the top!

Do you make oatmeal regularly in your house? Do you soak your oats? Have you ever tried soaking your oats in sourdough starter before? If you give it a try, let me know what you think. What do you like to add to your oatmeal? Chime in, and let us know.

I’ve always loved the smell of lavender. Lavender has a calming scent, one that feels soothing on the nerves. I’ve smelled lots of “lavender-scented” things over the years, but there’s nothing like the real thing.

Lavender fresh from the garden is gentle. It feels like one of those herbs you don’t even need to ingest to notice the benefits… by simply holding, touching, and smelling lavender, it’s healing magic has already begun.

Gardening sometimes involves a whole lot of trial and error. That has been the case with growing lavender in our garden. I have seen gorgeous, thriving lavender plants in the gardens of family and friends, and though we have grown lavender plants here over the years- they have not yet thrived.

We have tried growing lavender in a handful of different spots. One area didn’t get enough sun. Another area was too overgrown. The last few years we tried two other locations and learned something else our lavender plants don’t like, which is being planted near the vegetables where the sprinklers are sometimes used for watering.

We wondered where to try planting the lavender next, and had an idea about a different location in the garden. Jeff has now transplanted a few lavender plants to the new area where they won’t get overwatered. We will see how they do there.

I like to dream of thriving lavender plants here, and an abundance of lavender to harvest to make bundles to share. Will the lavender plants like their new spot and grow into large, thriving plants? Who knows? Perhaps our location surrounded by forest is not their favorite, or perhaps when we find just the right spot in the garden and continue adapting and tuning in to their needs… the lavender plants will thrive here after all.

I will tell you one thing though, we haven’t given up. That’s the thing about gardening- when one thing doesn’t work, try something else. There have been certain things we wanted to grow here that were not well suited to our location, that we ended up letting go. There have been other things that took a lot of experimenting before they did well here. Every year in the garden there are more experiments, and each kind of plant teaches us more about what it needs to thrive.

For now I am grateful for our humble lavender harvests, those few little bundles we bring in are savored and enjoyed. We don’t need a lot of something to enjoy it, in fact sometimes when we have less of something we savor and appreciate it even more.

P.S. We love making tiny lavender bundles.

I love that over time our year is marked by little things like when the red huckleberries are ripe. B is always the first to notice when they are ready, and we all savor the tart little berries.

I remember how amazed I felt when I first moved to the Pacific Northwest, and saw huckleberries all over the woods in this area. Being able to walk into the forest and pick berries to eat felt a bit surreal to me, I had never experienced that before.

The red huckleberries ripen earlier in the season, and then the blue and deep purple ones usually ripen in late summer and fall. The red ones are tart, and the later ones are sweeter. We love them all.

I don’t think I’ve ever had much of a “huckleberry harvest” picture to share with the red huckleberries until this year. The harvests are usually a handful here and there. (That top picture is from June this year, and the other two were from years back.)

This year we brought in a little bowl full of them and that felt like a treasure. There were more red huckleberries out there this year than we had ever seen before, it was a good year for them.

Our favorite bush to harvest from is growing out of a tree stump and is hard to reach. With the help of a ladder, we were able to harvest that little bowl. (Clearing away some of the blackberries overtaking the area would have helped us reach more too, there is always plenty of blackberry clearing to do about the place.) The rest are for the birds to enjoy.

What berries grow wild where you live? What are your favorites to gather?

Jeff had been wanting to plant sweet peas, and after missing our planting window a few times, this year he made sure to plant some sweet peas.

We tried a new variety for the first time called Fragrantissima. We ordered it from Territorial Seed Company, and since we were searching for a variety with the most scent, the description was just what we were looking for…

“Considered by experts to be the most fragrant sweet pea varieties available to home gardeners, Fragrantissima is a delight to the nose as well as the eye. Its heavenly perfume is equaled only by the assortment of shades and patterns that the mix contains.”

We are loving the sweet peas in the garden this year, and they have been making their way into vases. I love sharing favorite varieties of vegetables and flowers with you that we grow in the garden. It’s also nice to have a garden journal of sorts here to refer back to, and help remember those garden favorites.

We had a heat wave here last weekend, with temperatures in the hundreds. My dad and stepmom came to visit and I joked that we might have to water ourselves down with the hose all weekend.

My dad joked that we might need to eat ice cream all weekend to survive, an even better idea. So we made some homemade ice cream. Not only did we survive the heat, but we made the weekend fun.

We were concerned about the garden with the coming heat, and put shade cloth over the greenhouse to keep the plants from cooking. Jeff also got sections of remay ready, which is thin white fabric made of polyester. (I’ve seen it spelled Remay and also Reemay.)

Remay is often used in the garden to protect from pests or frost. I used to think of it as something you use in the wintertime for frost protection, but it’s a helpful tool in the garden in the summertime as well, which I’ve been seeing more and more over the years.

Remay works great to help reflect light and keep the plants cooler in the heat. For us, it has worked better than shade cloth. We draped remay over many of the garden beds. The garden beds that were nearest to the cattle panel trellises (in the pictures), gave us something to clip the remay to, and Jeff built frames to keep the remay off the plants.

We found the remay we used at a local garden center, and there are many sources online as well. The thickness of the fabric and amount of light it lets through can vary (some allow 75% light transmission), something we’ve noticed from different ones we’ve purchased over the years. We store ours when it’s not in use, and it gets used over and over again.

On the hottest day (106 degrees) we jumped in the river with friends, and it was amazing how different the intense heat felt when we were comfortable in the water. This last Wednesday the temps went back down, and it was a relief.

The heat was so intense, we had plants completely laying flat in the garden. We did end up losing a few plant starts (there was no remay over those), some of the bigger plants we were concerned about did pull through, and overall the garden ended up doing really well through the heat. Thanks to all the watering Jeff did, and thanks to the remay.

The remay made all the difference! We are sure there would have been a lot of loss in the garden without it.

So much love goes into the garden, and we’re grateful when we find ways to help protect the plants. The remay helped the garden immensely through the heat wave, and we wanted to share about it in case you are wanting to find a way to help protect your garden in intense heat!

Do you love strawberries? We sure do. Berry season is a favorite time of year around here. We love them all- strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries. There’s nothing like fresh, delicious, sun-ripened, sweet berries!

Over the years we have grown strawberries in the garden, bought them from local farms, and gone strawberry picking. In the wintertime, when fresh berries were not available locally, on occasion we bought bags of frozen strawberries from the grocery store. More times than not I was disappointed when I saw inside the bag- many of the berries were more white than red, hardly ripe at all.

I know I’m a bit spoiled with the quality of berries we are used to, but strawberries taste best when they are red and ripe, and I don’t want to waste money on berries that don’t taste very good. You know what I mean? Also, the cost of buying strawberries adds up.

Both of those things inspired our family to talk about growing more strawberries ourselves. We wanted to be able to have fresh berries to enjoy, and hopefully grow enough at some point to have extra to freeze as well.

There were issues we ran into when growing strawberries over the years though.

The first issue was insects and slugs. I can’t count the number of times we got excited when we discovered a ripe strawberry, only to go to pick it and see that rollie pollies, slugs, or some other insect had eaten away the other side. Bummer!

The next issue was chipmunks and birds. If the insects didn’t get them, the other critters did. Of all the strawberries we grew, we hardly got to eat any of them ourselves. Sometimes the strawberries would rot on the moist ground, which was another problem. And did I mention we have a problem with moles too?

All that to say, our dream of growing strawberries… well, it didn’t yield that many berries, even when we planted a lot.

When one thing doesn’t work… try something else, right?

We started growing strawberries up off the ground in containers. That made a big difference! (Some of you might remember this red wagon picture from a blog post I wrote in 2020 about re-purposing containers for planting.)

Chipmunks and birds still enjoyed the berries, but we had less issues with insects when we grew the strawberries in containers.

Then in 2022 we purchased our first GreenStalk Vertical Planter. It was a game-changer. (I wrote all about it in this post.) We planted some strawberries in it and were so pleased with how well they did, that we planted more strawberries in our GreenStalk planters last year.

And this year?

This year we went for it and planted lots and lots of strawberries in our GreenStalk planters! We started with bare root strawberries, so you can see in the picture that the plants are not huge yet, but they are still producing a lot! This year we have been harvesting more strawberries in our garden than ever before.

Strawberries in this year’s garden. There is a raised bed behind the GreenStalk planter, with a bamboo trellis.

We love growing strawberries in the GreenStalk planters for many reasons. For one, we can grow SO many strawberries in a small area because of the vertical design. In the 7-Tier GreenStalk Leaf Vertical Planter there are 42 planting pockets. In that same amount of space on the flat ground, we could only plant maybe 4 or 5 strawberry plants.

Growing them up off the ground, we don’t have the issues with insects that we do with growing them on the ground. We noticed less insect damage when we grew strawberries in containers like I mentioned above, and then even less insect damage when growing them in the GreenStalk planters.

Also, the Greenstalk planters give us more protection from chipmunks and birds eating the berries because the berries are harder for them to get to. (We planned on putting bird netting over the planters, but didn’t end up needing to.) I must say, it is so great to be able to plants lots of strawberries and actually end up with many to eat!

The strawberries get lots of sunshine with the way that they drape over the sides of the planter pockets, making for ripe, delicious berries. (Another great thing has been not having the issue with strawberries rotting on the moist ground.)

Having the strawberries in the GreenStalk planters makes them so easy to grow too- easy to water, and easy to harvest. Not to mention less weeds!

Years ago, there were a few farms that had their u-pick strawberries available in a window of time in the month of June. You had to check in about picking times to make sure you didn’t miss the season. When I thought of June, I thought of strawberries.

There are June-bearing strawberries, and most varieties have one crop a year and give an abundance of berries. Since those early strawberry picking days, I’ve also learned about other kinds of strawberries that can produce for longer. Most varieties of Everbearing strawberries will produce two smaller crops, first in June and then in early fall.

There is a third kind of strawberry called Day-Neutral. These can produce all throughout the garden season. I was excited when we learned about them! We now plant Day-Neutral varieties in our garden so we can enjoy strawberries in the garden the whole season long.

Growing strawberries in the GreenStalk planters, and growing the Day-Neutral varieties have been two key things that have made it possible for us to enjoy more abundant strawberry harvests in our backyard.

The GreenStalk planters have been a great investment in our garden that have quickly paid for themselves, and then some. If you’d like to hear more about what we enjoy growing in our GreenStalk planters, and why we love them so much, be sure to check out this post.

The strawberry plants have more than paid for themselves too. (It’s recommended that the Day-Neutral strawberry plants be replaced every three years for best production.) I’m thinking that next year the plants will be even larger and more established, and the harvests could be even better than this year.

All that to say, we are very grateful to now have a way to be growing more strawberries in our own backyard and I wanted to share all about it with you.

I hope everything I’ve shared today will inspire you on your strawberry growing journey!

If you are interested in a GreenStalk vertical planter for your garden, you can get $10 off your order of $75 or more when you use my link! (By the way, the 10 Year Anniversary Sale at GreenStalk Garden is going for one more day, with everything on sale!) When you use my link, it gives our family $10 credit towards our next GreenStalk planter, which helps us grow more food in our backyard. Thank you for your support! I love devoting time to sharing inspiration in this space, and I love sharing about products and companies that have been a blessing in our life- with the hope that they may be a blessing in yours as well!

May your backyard strawberry harvests be abundant friends!

P.S. I found this adorable strawberry container at the thrift store. Isn’t it sweet?

{Strawberries and calendula in last year’s GreenStalk planter. The calendula grew huge!}

Hi Garden Friends! What are you growing in your gardens this year?

The garden is a busy place around here right now. There has been a lot of planting, harvesting, weeding, and watering going on out there. I wanted to share some of what we’ve been up to.

Do you remember my blog post from last year writing about the planter we discovered that I called a vertical gardening game-changer? If you haven’t read it yet, you can check out the post here.

Since I wrote that original post about purchasing our first GreenStalk Vertical Garden Planter, our love for the GreenStalk planters has continued.

In our first GreenStalk planter, we started out by growing lettuce and strawberries. Last year I told you I wanted to experiment growing other things and would let you know how it went.

Today I wanted to share about some of our favorite things we’ve grown in our GreenStalk planters so far. It’s a continual journey because we keep experimenting- planting and trying new things!

We planted parsley in the GreenStalk planters last year and it did amazing. All summer long I harvested fresh parsley to put on our meals and salads. That was on our list to definitely plant again in the GreenStalk planters this year.

Sidenote: That first picture with the parsley shows the bottom base of the GreenStalk planter, before adding the other layers. We have filled and stacked all the layers with soil before planting the plants, and we have also planted the plants in the layers as we go. We’ve done both ways, and they both work just fine.

Not only did we experiment with growing different things in the GreenStalk planters, we also tried them in the greenhouse as well as outdoors. The pictures above show some of the lettuce we grew in the greenhouse last year. (It went nuts.) We grew basil and Tulsi basil in the Greenstalk planter in the greenhouse, and they thrived also.

One of the things that really blew us away that we grew in the Greenstalk in the greenhouse last year? Peppers! Wow! I didn’t get a good picture of them growing in the GreenStalk to be able to show you, but it was definitely a success. The pepper plants were huge, and so prolific. It was unreal how many peppers we were able to grow in such a small space.

{The cilantro has done really well too. The GreenStalks are great for growing herbs!}

I just thought I would mention that we grew the peppers in the Original size GreenStalk. We love the Leaf size GreenStalks for growing herbs, lettuce, and strawberries, but those can be grown in either. (All the things that grow well in the Leaf size do well in the Original size too.)

{Lettuce planted in the spring, at the beginning of the gardening season.}

I wrote a lot in that original post about why we love the GreenStalk planters so much. Here are a few of the reasons…

Why We Love GreenStalk Vertical Planters:

–Gardening Where You Are: The GreenStalk planters make it possible to grow an abundance of food in a small space. If you have a small deck or only a little space available, you can still enjoy growing a garden! The 5-Tier Original has 30 planting pockets, and the 7-Tier Leaf has 42 planting pockets. That’s a lot of plants in a small space!

–Saving SO Much Space! Even if you do have other garden space available, planting in the GreenStalk planters can free up room to make the most of what you have. Every year it’s a challenge for us to find the room for everything we want to grow in the garden, and the more we plant in the GreenStalk planters, the more space is freed up in our raised garden beds for growing other things.

–Simplifies Gardening. The GreenStalk planters are easy to plant, and easy to water. It also makes harvesting easy, and we’ve found the produce requires less washing at harvest time. Oh, and did I mention making weeding easier too?

–Saving Money! With the GreenStalk planters, we are able to grow more food in the space we have available. The savings are huge with the amount of food that we are able to grow in each planter. Adding up the total of what the produce would cost from the store, we’ve found that the GreenStalk planters quickly pay for themselves and then some!

–Delicious Food! We’ve been really pleased with the food we’ve grown in the GreenStalk planters. I’ve also noticed less damage from pests, and the birds don’t eat up all the strawberries like they do when we grow them on the ground.

{One of the GreenStalk planters full of strawberries in this year’s garden. The bamboo trellis in the background is for the raised bed behind the planter. We started with bare root strawberries, and they’ve been growing fast.}

[Edited to add: Check out this post about benefits of growing strawberries in GreenStalk planters and choosing kinds that will produce throughout the garden season!]

Overall, there are so many reasons why we love our GreenStalk planters! We have three GreenStalk planters currently, and we continue to add more planters to our garden each year. Everyone I’ve introduced these vertical planters to has ended up loving them too!

Right now GreenStalk Garden is having a 10 Year Anniversary Sale! Everything is on sale and they have some great deals. Get $10 off any order of $75 or more when you use my link!

When you use my link it gives our family $10 credit towards our next Greenstalk planter, which helps us grow more food in our backyard- thank you! It also supports my blogging efforts so I can devote more time to sharing inspiration in this space. I only promote products here that I truly believe in and companies I personally support, with the hope that they will be a blessing in your life as well!

May your gardens be abundant friends!

Years ago we put a birdhouse out in the garden, and we waited for birds to move in. Nothing happened, and I kind of forgot about it. Until… last year when birds moved into it for the very first time!

When we discovered that black-capped chickadees had moved into the birdhouse, we were all so delighted!

We watched the mama and papa bird fly in and out regularly. We loved watching when they started bringing food to the babies. Later we were able to witness some of the birds flying the nest, which felt truly magical to behold. (This picture shows one about to leave!)

The whole experience brought us a lot of joy. This year, in preparation, B cleaned out the birdhouse. We didn’t see any birds moving in, and hoped that last year wasn’t just a fluke. But then…

“They’re back!” B spotted them, our beloved chickadees came back this year! We’ve been seeing them flying in and out of the birdhouse, and the other day B walked quietly over to it, and heard the peep of babies!

We are feeling very grateful they came back. We love watching them! The chickadees have a special place in my heart, there is something so sweet about them. I love learning different bird calls, and the chicka-dee-dee-dee that the chickadees make is one of my favorites.

I’ve been looking forward to telling my grandma the good news that the chickadees are back. She loves birds, and always gives us updates on which ones she is seeing in her yard.

Growing up, I remember her birdbaths, and bird feeders in her yard. She also volunteered at a local park to clean out the birdhouses each year, and my sister and I came along with her sometimes when she did that. Those are such good memories.

Tell me, what birds have you been seeing lately friends? I want to hear all about it.

Years ago I had a few blogs I discovered as a new mom. I read them regularly, and found them so inspiring. One of those blogs was SouleMama. Amanda is no longer blogging over there these days, but inspiration from what she shared lives on. Her post about garlic scapes back in 2012 was the first time I had ever heard about making pesto with them.

The scapes are harvested so the garlic plant will put the energy into growing the bulb. And let me just say- those scapes are too good to toss out! That’s why I was so grateful to find out about making pesto with them.

Since then it has become a part of our yearly rhythm to make Garlic Scape Pesto. I don’t follow a recipe with specific measurements, but simply add things to the food processor until it’s to our liking. This year we made it with the garlic scapes we harvested in the garden, fresh lemon juice, olive oil, sunflower seeds, and salt. I like to start with smaller amounts of each thing, and taste test it as I keep adding. We like to make a big batch if we have plenty of garlic scapes on hand, and then freeze the extra.

Garlic Scape Pesto is delicious, and also has some very potent garlic medicine! I learned that if I overdid it, I could get an upset stomach. (I might have been quite content eating a whole jar with crackers like other types of pesto, or just with a spoon because it’s seriously that delicious, but would later regret it with a stomachache.) To help with that, I put smaller amounts in each jar when I make it. I love to put small amounts as a garnish with meals, or blend it with coconut milk or something else to mellow it a bit and make a creamy sauce with it.

Since we only harvest garlic scapes once a year, it makes the pesto feel extra special. It’s wonderful to take a jar out of the freezer months later, and savor that garlic-y goodness a bit longer.

Do garlic scapes find their way to your kitchen? What is your favorite way to prepare them?