You Grow Girlâ„¢

Well even though the lavender is all dried up and the bees have all but lost interest, my trip a few weeks ago to the Celebrate Lavender Festival in Sequim, Wash., was great. Sequim has the ideal growing climate for lavender similar to that of Provence, France.

Every year the small town is bombarded with lavender enthusiasts for the street fair as well as farm tours over a three-day weekend in July. The lampposts are done up with purple ribbons and you come home smelling like a lavender sachet. It's only a cost of $6 and includes a program, entry into all the farms and a map of the area. In addition to the street fair and the farms there are other farms and gift shops open this festival weekend too.

I think I went to about five of the farms and did U-pick at three of them. Inside of many of the farmhouses are giftshops as well as small places with food. Included of course was the lavender ice cream and lavender lemonade with a sprig of lavender to stir it up. If you haven't tried to make your own it's also easy. You can just slightly crush your lavender buds (the edible variety without chemicals) and then toss them in. Or you can also try putting them in a muslin bag like you would make tea and let the flowers steep in the lemonade container. I like the appearance of the buds floating here and there, however.

While touring the lavender farms I particularly enjoyed Lost Mountain Lavender (www.lostmountainlavender.com) where I did the U-pick and they also had a cute gift shop, music and a greenhouse with more lavender varieties I have ever seen in one place.

I also like Cedarbrook (www.cedarbrookherbfarm.com) with more of the same, however I found a lovely yellow lavender plant there.

I also got a Madrid pink lavender with hot pink blooms at Olympic Lavender Farm www.olympiclavender.com).

Meanwhile things at home got a little crispy with 100 degree days recently. It has cooled off this week to everyone's enjoyment to about 80 or the high 70s. The lawn is August brown, dry, crispy and looks like straw. There’s not point in watering when gallons of rain will be coming down soon enough to green that baby up. It looks awful though but maybe next year I will take more lawn out and put more plants in!

This is the first year I have had the larger dahlias come up. I planted them almost two years ago maybe and they didn’t poke up last year. The zucchini are getting too king-sized for their own good and after a little pruning and more water the roses are continuing on with their blooms!