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Hi Reader,

I hope you're having a good 4th of July weekend! We spent a few days at the coast with family eating great food and watching fireworks in 70-80 degree weather before heading home Friday to the first of 5 days of 100 degrees in the valley where we live. 😳

Picture me watering everything. 😂 Thankfully, it's still supposed to get into the 50s at night, so we should be able to cool off some in between. Thankful for air conditioning and praying that no new fires start in Oregon!

The vegetable garden is doing well, though, and hopefully after this little blip will have time to continue ripening the peppers and tomatoes and start growing some beans, zucchini, and cucumbers.

Here's the state of the veggie garden early summer:

​22+ Ways to Preserve Basil (and Pesto isn't one of them!)​

​Ultimate Sweet Pepper Guide - Grow, Harvest, Cook & Preserve​

​Ultimate Hot Pepper Guide - Grow, Harvest, Cook & Preserve​

​How to plant tomatoes so they thrive (and why I use the red plastic mulch!).

I started these under cover like I wrote about here, then switched to the insect netting you see above when it got hot. Growing them under cover all the time isn't as pretty but the produce is SO clean! No aphids on the broccoli and very few cabbage worms (a few do manage to find their way under...).

​How to Grow Table Grapes - so easy (just keep the birds away, lol).

This year I experimented with letting one vine from the grapes grow along the fence instead of keeping all of them on the arbor and it's producing a lot more grapes! Now just to keep the birds and deer away (some are growing on the outside of the fence...).

​JULY GARDEN CHORES​

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What I'm Making This Week

With the hot weather this week, it's no cook or make-ahead-cook-in-the-morning menu that I pulled from the July Dinner Ideas list. I hope this is helpful for you if you're dealing with hot weather, too!

Chicken Skewers with Teriyaki Sauce, rice, and garden salad with Sesame Vinaigrette​ ​

​Steak Salad with Creamy Garlic-Pepper Dressing​ Served with grilled garlic toast.

Grilled salmon burgers (Costco), Slow Cooker Honey Baked Beans, Caesar Slaw​ ​

​Spicy Chicken Noodle Salad​ One dish dinner - make it in the cool morning! ​

Taco salad (made with ground turkey) with Healthier French American Dressing Plus 10-Minute Homemade Chips (or store bought) & The Best Chunky Guacamole ​

Remember it's easy to save recipes on An Oregon Cottage! Just click the heart when browsing to save your personal favorites! TIP: when you click on the link, it will take you to my site - click the heart like you see here to the left - it will be on the bottom right on the site. A pop up form will come up for you to create an account (or sign in if you already have). You need to create a password for this account (no info is kept besides your email) and then you can save all recipes and articles to this account and access it anytime to remember what you want and choose what to make!

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From The Blog

​Good Things List No.74​ North Cascades National Park, Pain Relief, Anti-Bark Device, Books & More! ​ Read It Here! ​

​No Bake Blueberry Pie (lower sugar)​ Such a great hot summer dessert!! ​ Get The Recipe Here! ​

A Few More Things

​This is the only thing that has ever gotten my white things white again (and keeps them white) besides nasty bleach which I don't want to use. If you have white things and don't know about this, grab some!

We love our Blackstone Griddle and it's the only way we "grill" anymore - no more burned-on-the-outside-raw-in-the-middle chicken! We don't need a basket for grilled veggies and we've made other things on it, too. But I don't think we're getting all the use out of it, so I am interested in this cookbook - if you have it or recommend another, let me know!

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Stay cool, friend!

P.S. Don't forget to save your recipe and gardening tips to easily organize them and find them in the future! (Also, this is a way to help my site - "voting" for favorites shows Google and Ad people that you like my content, like the recipe ratings and reviews do. 😀)

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