Posted on June 28, 2022June 29, 202206/28/2022 The accidental shot of the week. I didn’t notice this bee kicking a wasp off its foot until I looked at the photo later! The bumblebee is feeding on Echinacea purpurea. Front of the bumblebee face is yellow. A zoomed in shot. The short overall hairs, all yellow on thorax and head, smoky dark wings, and minimal color on abdomen have led me to think it may be Bombus griseocollis, the brown-belted bumblebee. I have entered the sighting and photos on Bumble Bee Watch’s community science website where they can verify or correct this identification. This would be our fourth bumblebee species for the yard if I have identified it correctly. 🤞🤞 I found a second partridge pea plant blooming in the “prairie”! An all orangish solider beetle on a Rudbeckia flower. Shackleton the cat enjoyed hiding in brown crinkly paper. He has such big eyes! Paula is experimenting with kombucha fermentation thanks to a culture from Abby. This is the first sample and contains a garden strawberry for added flavor. It was good! Briar helps us observe bees out front. I’ll do a separate post with evening bees if any pics turned out. A baby moon and stars watermelon!! A baby praying mantis on the mint! Paula and I weeded the orange and red section of the rainbow garden. It has a lot of invasive grass in it.
Posted on June 20, 2022June 20, 202206/19/2022 Will Rogers Zinnias came back true. A little Solanaceae volunteered in the rainbow garden. It conveniently has a yellow flower. Paula started a batch of kimchi fermenting. Walking onions for the green onion. Who is this This friend not want to play
Posted on June 18, 2022June 18, 202206/18/2022 curing onions The Chef braided the onions and now they are out to cure in warm shade for a few days per Judy’s instructions. Thanks for answering all my random onion questions today Judy. 😏
Posted on June 18, 2022June 18, 202206/18/2022 onion time Oops. We disturbed this big beautiful toad. The toad hopped over our onions to nestle down under some bean plants. We turned the soaker hose on after we were done harvesting to make sure any other plants we disturbed weren’t too upset, and hopefully that will keep the toad safely into the cooler night too. Three kinds of onion! The shadiest bed has Inca pea beans planted over Thomas Laxton sugar peas which we removed as they were getting mildewy. Now the pea beans have room to grow. Our supervisor chose a shady, cool corner. Left are the dried Thomas Laxton sugar peas for next season. To the right are Oregon sugar pod II (the original kind I had) from earlier this spring. I am going to bleach them to prevent transfer of the mildew to next season. We also put the plant waste in the city yard waste bins as their composting gets much hotter than ours.
Posted on May 29, 2022May 29, 2022A very unfortunate season for cilantro here Blanching night! The cilantro by the porch kept threatening to flower, and the community supported agriculture farm share bag this week had more summer squash and zucchini than we wanted to deal with. Right now a single cilantro plant has reseeded and it’s in this crack by the front porch. I think since I found this one, there are a few more out in the raised beds, but it’s nothing like last year’s glorious multiple beds. Here it has received a heavy duty haircut. 59 g of cilantro. Two units of cilantro. There was the 59 g from our porch crack plant and a small bundle from the weekly farm share delivery. I squeeze out water from the blanched herb and then put them in these balls. They work fine for salsa verde, though I don’t have any tomatillo plants this year, sigh. Lessons learned about pot drainage. The zucchini and summer squash in the freezer, spread out so they don’t become a solid squash ice rock.
Posted on December 21, 2021December 21, 2021Ground cherry raisins At least 20 hours on 95°F temperature in the dehydrator. I did a lot of stops and starts so I’ll go straight through next time and get the timing more accurate.
Posted on November 29, 2021November 29, 2021Saturday butter beans We did more fall garden clean up on Saturday. Look at the size of the roots on this Peruvian ground cherry!! Neat clouds. The Lima bean vines were dead but still had some green pods, so we asked The Chef to attempt butter beans. He also added a few slices of jalapeño. Some drier limas that still need drying but weren’t green enough for the butter beans. Yum! Thanksgiving leftovers with butter beans.
Posted on November 25, 2021November 28, 2021Bean counting highlights Paula and I sorted and weighed yesterday’s harvest. Look at these beauties! They were our favorites of each variety. Inca pea beans are maroon and white in the middle. Clockwise from the top are Alabama blackeye butter lima bean (the big flat white ones), slippery silk (pink ones), California blackeye cowpeas (whitish, not glossy), greasy grits (speckled tan), vaquero (moo cow pattern), and bolas maycoba (creamy color).
Posted on November 14, 2021November 14, 2021Saffron harvest Wow!! Paula was just here on Friday and said the saffron crocuses were not open like this. This was on Saturday night. We got 69 threads, for a season total up to 78 threads now. Happened to be in the spice aisle today at grocery store. Planting your own is a pretty good deal after a year or two!
Posted on November 6, 2021November 6, 2021Nine more threads today That’s from three more saffron crocus flowers.