Gallery – Page 9 – This is Another Story

#SundayStills: Let’s #Celebrate the Garden Harvests

Published on August 21, 2023August 20, 2023 by Yinglan20 Comments

Despite having some failures in the garden this year like the pest infestation and my inability to grow squash, I feel this garden season has been a wonderful and successful one and as August ends and September rolls around, I have a sinking feeling I’ll have to say goodbye to the 2023 garden very soon. I can’t express gratitude enough for all that it’s given me from food to joy to admiration to other wonderful feelings. Therefore, I will dedicate this post to celebrate the garden. I hope you enjoy this photo gallery.

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Nature Photo Challenge #25 – Seedheads

Published on August 18, 2023August 17, 2023 by Yinglan11 Comments

I agree, seedheads aren’t always the prettiest thing in the world to photograph.

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CMMC: August Pick a Topic

Published on August 17, 2023August 16, 2023 by Yinglan10 Comments

Cee’s Midweek Madness Challenge

CFFC: Forms and Shapes in Nature

Published on August 16, 2023August 15, 2023 by Yinglan7 Comments

Nature forms its own cover for its rocks and made it look like a carpet

In a way, nature knows its way to create art, like this streak of yellow through a patch of green

Finally, these are interesting looking tree trunks, aren’t they? The first image reminded me of horse’s hooves like one is raising while the other one remains on the ground. The second image makes me think of a teepee.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge

Nature Photo Challenge #24 – Edibles

Published on August 11, 2023August 10, 2023 by Yinglan12 Comments

I have no shortage of edibles in my backyard and front yard gardens. After all, I eat mostly out of it during the summer.

There was a rainstorm about a week ago. I love the look of the garden after a storm. The water droplets on the leaves made for a great photo opportunity and I got to play with my macro lens filters because I find the camera focuses better on small subjects (like water droplets) with a sort-of magnifying glass attached. I love how the pictures turned out.

These are kale leaves, by the way. I doubled my kale production this year from 3 plants to 7 plants this year – 2 dinosaur kale and 5 Red Russian kale. Ever since June, I’ve been eating kale once a week – cooking it down in a broth. I didn’t know what it was doing to my gut but it didn’t take long to find out. I believe it was the thing that contributed to my 7-pound weight loss in 2 months.

I also have herbs in my garden this year. I had dill in late spring and early summer before it went to seed, making a corner of my garden smell like dill pickle. That’s one of my favorite smells and often found myself visiting that corner of the garden just to inhale the scent since I’m not going to get to make my pickles this year (thanks a lot, earwigs).

After heavily pruned the Holy Basil back in July, it’s starting to grow back again, producing more of that bubblegum pink blooms. Did I mention it smells like bubblegum? Another one of my favorite corner this year.

Finally, lemon balm. I love the smell, too. It doesn’t smell like lemon. It smells like one of those lemon-flavored super sour hard candy. It was a herb I wish I had last year because it was one of the plants that died on me. This year, however, I have such an abundance of it that I don’t know what to do with.

Last but not least, I can’t forget the most obvious edibles in the garden. I’ve sowed a new round of snow peas for the fall garden, hopefully, those will emerge soon, before I get anxious. I’ve had a few of the Japanese cucumbers and they were, so far, the best variety I’ve grown so far as they don’t get bitter.

The strawberries are getting ready for another flush as the temperatures cool. I’m looking forward to it. I’m loving the sweet banana peppers this year and am considering replacing my usual bells with this pepper in the future. I’ve eaten at least 10 of these already and my bell peppers have not even produced one. So disappointing this year.