{For all you summer lovers - don't read this part!} This time of year, I am ready for fall!

I am putting together the FrenchGardenhouse Fall Collection, as well as traveling to a few Home & Design Markets to view all the spring trends in home decor, and shop more for our FrenchGardenHouse Holiday Collection. We just had a family wedding {yay!!- you can see a few photos on our instagram account} AND....shipments are continuing to arrive with all the antiques from France. So...it's a super busy time here.

It's a hive of activity here, and with the hot weather in our part of Southern California - a hot one! {And I'll be honest, with this hot weather, lazying around in the back garden sipping lemonade sounds really good.} But there are so many exciting boxes and containers to unpack for Fall!

I was able to restock some of the French canning jars with the vintage fruit labels you've asked for, they are already back up on the shop site. Not just for storing things in your French Country kitchen, they love to show off late summer flowers too!

This larger Citron French jar was just featured in the fall issue of Victorian Homes Magazine, along with its friend the French bucket.

More often than not, during this hot and so busy time, dinner in the summer at FrenchGardenHouse is a combination of a huge organic salad with something else easy. Sometimes just fresh baked bread, sometimes with a soup, or sometimes as a side, it all depends on what is on the salad.

By early evening, our back patio has cooled off enough to eat out there. For quick al fresco dinners, I put everything on a tray to carry outdoors. A few dishes, napkins {yes, I do use our linen napkins every day- I wash and tumble dry only, no ironing!} a few glasses for an aperitif, and I'm all set.

Weekday evenings are the perfect time for fresh, "clean-eating" salads. I'm sharing the recipe for this very easy delicious salad today, it's a summer favorite at our house. I buy organic produce as much as I can, this week I found such beautiful watercress, I added it to the salad and omitted the kale. {Mr FGH hates kale. He's not a trend follower!}

So easy, and this Green Goddess Dressing is absolutely delicious in combination with the fresh produce from the market! Be sure to slice the radishes super thin, and try to get small ones. You know how radishes are sometimes super bitter or spicy? I've found that the smaller ones are the better ones.

MY FAVORITE FRENCH COUNTRY GREEN SUMMER SALAD:

INGREDIENTS:

• Butter lettuce, a little shredded kale if desired, and some watercress
• 1/2 pint organic multi-colored cherry tomatoes, halved
• 2 radishes, sliced thinly.
• 1/4 cup fresh parmesan {i use more!}

DIRECTIONS:

1. Chop up kale and butter lettuce, and the watercress.
2. Put the cherry tomatoes in a small bowl, drizzle with some olive oil, salt & pepper and marinate a while.
3. Place all ingredients in bowl {including the tomatoes in the olive oil}
4. Top the salad with parmesan.
5. Drizzle Green Goddess Dressing over entire salad.
6. Mix and serve.

I hope you are enjoying this last month of summer. I'll be channeling Fall in every way I can. Watch for the FrenchGardenHouse Fall Collection to launch sometime this month. If you want to be first to see and shop the newest collection, please sign up for our newsletter on the Shopsite . {You'll get a discount for your very first order, too!}

And aside from enjoying dinners in the back garden, I'll be attending a few more decor markets this month, and traveling to some favorite buying destinations. Hope your August is a happy month so far!

à bientôt