Marigold (Calendula officinalis) GREEN THUMB SUNDAY

A popular garden plant, Marigold has been valued for many centuries for its' exceptional healing powers and is particularly remarkable in the treatment of wounds. When used for medicinal purposes, it is commonly referred to as 'Calendula'.

I've read that a tea made of the flowers of this plant stimulates the liver and has anti-inflammatory properties,. Tincture of marigold is a powerful antiphlogistic for skin diseases. Poor healing wounds and mouth and throat infections can be helped by a compress with marigold tincture or a mouthwash.

Calendula officinalis is the main medicinal species used by herbalists but at last 100 wild species of Marigold can be found in Morocco, Portugal, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, India, Algeria, Mexico, Africa, Australasia, Asia Minor and Palestine. It has been grown in Britain since Roman times and cultivated in temperate regions of the United States since the 18th century.

Marigold has a long history of medicinal use, stretching back to the Roman's and the ancient Greeks, who drank Marigold tea to relieve nervous tension and sleeplessness. It has also been used in cooking, dying cloth and skin care and was a well-known symbol of good luck.

And here I was just growing it cuz it's pretty....

Happy Bastille Day

As my husband watched the parade on Champs-Élysées avenue in Paris this am on French Channel Tv5Monde, he got emotional. I know he misses his homeland; I don't blame him. We made plans today to be there next year. Yeah!!!

Bastille day is the French national holiday and is celebrated on the 14 of July of each year. In France, it is called Fête Nationale ("National Celebration"). It commemorates the 1790 Fête de la Fédération, held on the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789; the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille was seen as a symbol of the uprising of the modern French nation, and of the reconciliation of all the French inside the constitutional monarchy which preceded the First Republic, during the French Revolution. click for more info.

HAPPY BASTILLE DAY MY LOVE

Harvest ~ Green Thumb Sunday

What a blessing to be able to go into our garden and pick our own veggies! I roasted the bell peppers and added them to salsa along with the tomatoes and habanera peppers. We use basil in just about everything. Sauteed zucchini in olive oil with basil and garlic is my favorite.

Green Thumb Sunday



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These feet were made for WALKING!

As you can tell my the little blurb to the right, I have decided to walk the 3-day for breast cancer research. I am so excited. I need to raise $2,200. This will be the hardest part - not the walking.

My Aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer last year and went through a lot. It was a shock. Her attitude and early diagnosis pulled her through. Interesting, like so many, she almost blew off her mammogram that year...Don't even think about it! It can happen to any of us - even men.

Today, JL and I started training. Although he's not actually participating in the walk in November, he'll help me train. What a love.

Today, we walked for 2 hours. I've put on some weight recently and have not exercised since my last skin cancer episode. What the heck? I was becoming strong with consistent workouts, yoga, circuit training, etc. and then just stopped. Enough said...I'm happy to report I'm back!

Okay, this is not all about me....check out these interesting stats.

• Breast cancer is the most common cancer among American women, except for skin cancers. (Now that's scary)
• The chance of developing invasive breast cancer at some time in a woman's life is about 1 in 8 (12%). It is estimated that in 2008 about 182,460 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed among women in the United States.
• Women living in North America have the highest rate of breast cancer in the world. At this time there are about 2.5 million breast cancer survivors in the United States
• Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women, exceeded only by lung cancer.
• The chance that breast cancer will be responsible for a woman's death is about 1 in 35 (about 3%).
• In 2008, about 40,480 women will die from breast cancer in the United States. Death rates from breast cancer have been declining since about 1990, with larger decreases in women younger than 50. These decreases are believed to be the result of earlier detection through screening and increased awareness, as well as improved treatment. (merci cancer.org)
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  So ladies - have you had your annual mammogram ??? If not schedule it right now!!!

Salvia 'Victoria Blue'

Salvia farinacea

This little gem is drought tolerant and can take full sun. It's great for San Diego gardens.

It's a perennial, treated as an annual in colder areas.

We've Got Tomatoes!

I thought I was being all fancy and bought some rebar and painted them green. I wanted to use these to hold up the tomatoes in the garden. I don't like the cages you buy at home depot. They don't let the tomatoes breath. Only problem - I didn't buy enough and should have bought them taller. Lesson learned. We ended up finding other things on the property and in the shed to use. Eclectic.

I waited too long to tie up the tomatoes. Some of the branches had fallen over. I also planted everything too close. Another lesson learned. As I lifted one branch this is what I found! It's a huge cluster of beauties but they are so close to the ground. Maybe I should thin them out.




My Early Girls have begun to ripen but the taste doesn't WOW me. At least they are healthy~organic. Do you know why the leaves are curly? It doesn't look very healthy.




To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves. -- Mohandas K. Gandhi

Bad Birds

"Hush, little baby, don't say a word, Mamma's gonna buy you a mockingbird. If that mockingbird don't sing, Mamma's gonna buy you a diamond ring".

What a silly promise Mamma made! A mocking bird NOT singing?? Mamma sure got out of that one easy enough!

What ever happened to the sweet little song birds that used to populate the garden? All I seem to see (AND HEAR) are those little black dive bombers that attack cats and poop all over my car and the ever "singing" Mocking Bird. I do have to admit to spotting an occasional hummingbird; I'd see more if I fed them.

This morning at 6:30, I was painting some rebarb for holding up the tomatoes and there were two mockingbirds going to town. I was getting a headache - too early for such conversation especially since I heard them all during the night.

Come to find out, it's the single male that does most of the singing at night. I think if he was the quite shy type, he might get a date! Who wants to hear all that jabbering all the time? The female rarely sings in the summer, usually only when the male has left the territory. Now what does that tell you?? Is she happy or sad?

Throughout history, a lot of attention has been given to this annoying bird. Walt Whitman and Richard Henry Wilde wrote their famous poems. Harper Lee's, To Kill A Mockingbird (I'v fantasized about this) is quoted as saying, "Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." Why, I ask, would it be a sin??? Don't get me wrong, you know I would never hurt an animal.

Another strange fact: Tennessee, Texas, and Florida all have the mockingbird as their state bird. Again, I ask why? Can you imagine all the beutiful birds they must have in Florida??

Okay, I will give this little creature some credit. Not only can it perform 39 species' songs and 50 call notes, but it also can mimic sounds such as that of a barking dog, squeaky hinges, notes from a piano and even a cackling hen, so expertly that even an electronic analysis could not tell the difference between the mockingbird and the original.

Monsieur Fournier puts these walnuts out for the birds in their garden in Provence. He even made the little cage holder for them. Isn't that sweet? The french name for bird is oiseau/single or oiseaux/plural. I wonder if they have mocking birds in France??

Tomorrow, I will share pictures of my tomato project!! T.G.I.F.!!!