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Marigold for Mom and Dad

A few marigolds are sprouting in Mom and Dad’s container garden.
Went for after-dinner walk and Gracie was feeling alright!
A bumblebee on Salvia greggii.
Blue stars are blooming!
These bluestars haven’t opened yet. This garden patch was transplanted from a patch up our hill a long time ago, to Mom and Dad’s garden. This is where mine in Norman are from.
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Warm day garden activities

We’re watering and fertilizing two straw bales to become potato growing sites.  The one that we’ve watered and covered with plastic to keep warm is growing straw. At least it’s not got herbicides on it!!
We trimmed the Salvia greggii back for bushiness and spring flowering. We also did the winter pruning for both new and old fruit trees but I forgot to take before and after pictures.
Several seeds are sprouting in the hoops.  If you can zoom in, you may see the two oil traps for earwigs.  It is leftover fryer oil so it should excite their senses. We also planted two varieties of lettuce seeds we forgot before, and sprinkled leaves from the Salvia branches on the idea they might repulse earwigs. Finally, a few seeds are already up: purple lady bok choy, lacinato/dinosaur kale, Scotch blue curled kale, and French breakfast radish.
The daffodils I moved from along the metal edging to among the Salvias are coming up! Hopefully the trim will also make these more visible if they end up blooming. They were previously overcrowded and in the shade, so maybe out here they’ll actually bloom.
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Tuesday evening

A milkweed beetle!! Very exciting! It’s sitting on a tepary bean though, silly friend.
Salvia greggii are doing amazing right now.
“landlocked gumbo” says the Chef. Okra, mini bell pepper, tam jalapeño pepper, and moss curled parsley all from garden.
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Sort of a rainbow

‘Diane’ purple Salvia greggii and purple moss verbena (non native, bought it by mistake), mealy blue sage, ‘Fordham giant’ Swiss Chard and lacinato kale for green, marigolds for yellow (but they turned out more orange…), Linnaeus burning embers marigolds for orange, and ‘Will Rogers’ zinnias for red. Needs some work on colors, but not bad for a start!
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Saturday stuff

I froze tiny tomatoes last night and they left funny holes.
Two Bombus impatiens (common eastern bumblebee).
Trimmed out the dead spots in the middle rosemary. I’m not sure why it’s upset.
Paula very wisely suggested trimming the Salvia greggii so we can better access the veggies, plus it’ll make them bloom more again.
As an experiment, we also trimmed back one of the Salvia farinacea (mealy blue sage) which are all getting very leggy.
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A week ago Saturday

Very excited to have a Gulf Fritillary in the yard!
I hope it found the passionvine in the back yard.
Made more salsa verde.
The Chef helpfully cans.
Ruff day gardening, need a nap.
Mail call!! Fall/winter peas, trying new ones.
A wildflower and an herb.
Trying again on parsnip this year with fresh seeds.

Winter indoor gardening ideas.
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Harvest and pruning

Surprise! A loofah gourd I didn’t plant has already reached the top of the trellis.
Chard, mini bell peppers, and Chimayó peppers.
The Chef found a cutworm in the chard.
I found a big beautiful banana spider (Argiope) in the tomatoes while I harvested! I made sure not to bother her more.
I finally determined the zucchini plant was a total loss to squash vine borers. I also made an executive decision to not let the very thriving white currant tomato plant shade out the moon and stars watermelon or the salvia or the rosemary. There’s only one plant and it’s a monster! I got over 900 g this evening alone.
All tidy now. I hope the watermelon will do better now.
I came inside to find this beautiful meal prepared by the Chef. Greens are chard from the garden and the bell pepper topping is mini bell peppers sliced. Yum. Nice and cool after working in the heat and humidity.