Return of the Butterflies!!

i was going to use this as my Wordless Wednesday post, but never got around to actually posting it. Another busy week, and my blog is feeling a bit neglected so i may be posting a few back to back the next couple days.

We are usually visited by a variety of butterflies all summer. In fact we often get so many that we joke about having a butterfly infestation. i can usually walk outside on any given day and count at least 10-20 butterflies. We raise and collect monarch caterpillars every year and this past spring we even planted extra carrots, dill, fennel and parsley to attract the black swallowtails. Yet we've only found one caterpillar and there has been very few butterflies this summer compared to the last few years.


...and then they began to come. In just the past few days, the swallowtails have been appearing and feeding on our butterfly bushes. They seem a few weeks late from last year.

Eastern Tiger swallowtail on tall phlox.

A battered looking Spicebush swallowtail, i believe. i still have a tough time telling the black ones apart.

A common buckeye and a Great Spangled Fritillary.

More Spicebush, i believe.

A female Eastern Tiger swallowtail. The males are always yellow, but females have a yellow and a black form.

We are so glad to see the butterflies returning! Our black swallowtail caterpillar should be emerging soon and we are getting ready to go look for monarch eggs. i love this time of year, when the butterflies are everywhere.


If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies.
Author Unknown

Cherokee Purple Tomato

Every year we plant a variety of tomatoes. In the past i have not paid that much attention to what we planted. i bought the most common varieties, Big boy, Beefsteak and Romas. This year i made a point of planting only Heirloom varieties and actually writing down what i planted so that i would remember when i began harvesting.


The first to ripen this year have been the Cherokee Purples. This is my first time growing them, and they have quickly become my favorite slicing tomato! Besides the unusual deep dusky red/deep purple hue of it's fruit, Cherokee Purples are extremely sweet and have an unbeatable tomato flavor.


Cherokee Purple tomatoes are beefsteak in style, with green "shoulders" across the top. They are known for having a dense, juicy texture, with small seed pockets irregularly scattered throughout the flesh. The darker interior color is enhanced by the seeds which are surrounded by green gel. A truly beautiful tomato!!
The fruits average 10-12oz, and the plants produce dense foliage. They are easy to grow and relatively disease resistant. A great choice for those new to growing heirlooms.

The Cherokee Purple is reported to have been grown by the Cherokee Indians, and is dated back as far as the late 1800s. It really has an interesting history and only became available in seed catalogs in the early 1990's. You can read more about it's history on Wikipedia.

You can find seeds for the Cherokee Purples at Southern Seed Exchange.



The Cherokee purples make the best tomato sandwiches ever. i really can not say enough about the wonderful flavor of these tomatoes. i've looked around for info on canning these, and although many people do...i don't think they are ideal for canning. Cherokee purples are best eaten fresh. We've been enjoying them on salads, sandwiches, topping bruchetta, tossed with pasta and eaten alone.
Last year Brandywines were my favorites. This year i planted black, yellow and red Brandywines so i'm eager for them to ripen to i can compare the flavors. Right now though, i am very much enjoying my Cherokee Purples. i will most definitely be growing these again next year!

Tropical Traditions Organic Virgin Coconut Oil Giveaway! CLOSED

As a health conscious family, we really try to limit the amount of oils and unhealthy fat in our diet. We primarily use extra virgin olive oil for cooking, but still occasionally use vegetable or canola oil for baking. A few months ago, a friend told me about coconut oil and the benefits to using it in place of other oils.
Coconut oil is also nature's richest source of medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs), also called medium-chain triglycerides or MCTs. High Lauric Acid. Tropical Traditions Gold label Virgin Coconut oil contains no hydrogenation or trans fats and contains the highest levels of anti-oxidants. They use only USDA Certified Organic, non GMO coconuts.

There are many ways to use coconut oil and incorporate it into one’s diet. Since it is a stable cooking oil, one can simply replace unhealthy oils in their diet with coconut oil. Since it is a solid most of the time at room temperature or when refrigerated, it can be a butter or margarine substitute for spreads or for baking. Any recipe calling for butter, margarine, or any other oil can be substituted for coconut oil.
Coconut oil can also be used in homemade lip balms, soaps and lotions. It can be massaged directly onto your skin and hair for use as a moisturizer.

Unlike most coconut oils on the market, Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil is still produced by hand. They use a wet-milling process of extracting the oil from fresh coconuts and benefit families in the rural areas of the Philippines where the coconuts grow. Tropical Traditions does NOT mass produce this oil. It is made by families who are coconut farmers using old-fashioned traditional methods that have been used in the Philippines for hundreds of years. Their coconut trees and family producers are certified organic according to strict USDA standards.

Tropical Traditions gave me the opportunity to try out their Gold Label Virgin Coconut oil. i was excited to try it out, and found that it adds a light coconut flavor to meals. i've used it to make pancakes, and to fry tofu and am very pleased with the flavor. It's absolutely delicious! My entire family loved the subtle flavor it added. Tropical Traditions website has an entire recipe section for their coconut products.

Buy it! You can purchase Gold Label Virgin Coconut oil here.

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Tropical Traditions has offered one reader a quart jar of their Gold Label Organic Virgin Coconut oil.

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Wordless Wednesday

Kid's Garden.

For the past few years, my kids have been in charge of their own garden. It is a small space, around 5' x 5', and they are responsible for planting and maintaining it. They are allowed to plant whatever they want, the only rule being that they must eat/try anything that they plant.

This spring Sage was very excited about picking out and buying the seeds for the garden. However, when it actually came to planting the garden her brother did most of the work.

i wasn't very good about getting pictures of the process this year. This photo gives you an idea of the space. Seeds are just starting to sprout in this photo, this was taken in early June.



This is the garden now. It is really filling in and doing great. You can really pack a good amount of veggies in a small space. Just make sure you are amending the soil with lots of compost and natural fertilizers so your plants get the nutrients they need.


On the trellis the kids planted scarlet runners and Purple pole beans. There are also a couple cucumbers climbing up as well. Both kids loves to eat them raw and my girl loves pickles! She'll be helping me to make refrigerator pickles out of them when they are ready. She is very excited about that!

This is a Moon and Stars watermelon. It is an heirloom variety that has a very dark green rind, liberally spotted with bright yellow stars and boasting the occasional larger, moon-shaped blotch of the same color. The foliage also contains these unusual markings. i can't wait to see the design fill in more and the watermelon grows.

Sage wanted a tomato plant. Although neither of my kids will eat fresh tomatoes, Sage loves them fried green. So she had to have her very own tomato plant just for fried green tomatoes.


The kids wanted to plant some Indian Corn. So they planted 8 seeds on the edge of the garden. i'm hoping it is enough to pollinate. They planted Anasazi Flour corn. It's a beautiful Traditional/rare Indian Corn that contains lots of color.

My boy planted zucchini and yellow squash. Both kids love to eat these raw and breaded/fried.

They also planted carrots, potatoes, marigolds and sunflowers. Potatoes are fun to grow, because it is like digging up a treasure at the end of the season. The carrots became home to the blackswallowtail caterpillar and a hornworm was spotted munching on the tomato.

Gardening with your kids encourages their interest in nature and enthusiasm early on in life, and will give them invaluable basic skills and an understanding of how the whole of the eco-system works. Kids learn about nurturing a life and what it takes to keep something alive. They learn about pollination from the bees and butterflies that visit the garden. When kids grow their own food, it helps to encourage healthy eating and teaches them where their food comes from. The garden may only last one season, but the memories will last a lifetime.

Many things grow in the garden that were never sown there. ~Thomas Fuller