Foods

Garden green beans (blue lake bush) with tonight’s dinner.
Rice to go with tacos on weekend. Garden tomatoes.
Refried beans to go with tacos
Refried beans before any frying. Mostly black teparies, a few vaqueros. All the remaining from last year’s harvest.

Corn on the cob, third time’s the charm?

Yesterday morning I picked half a dozen sweet corns and Wes buttered them up and roasted them in foil. The front one we threw out because of too few kernels from incomplete pollination.
Steak and corn.
While taking the husks out to the compost pile, I was relieved to see that my mysteriously dying frostweed is resprouting at the base.
Steak, a roll, a baked potato, and corn. Very classic.
Everything buttered up extra. It was pretty good but nothing to write home about. First year I picked way too late (hard and rubbery), last year didn’t pollinate, so I’m counting this as a win.
After dinner, the Chef found this fine friend on the porch.
The stealthy bagworm (a moth caterpillar). So invisible in its natural habitat of Rubbermaid tub lid!
Here it was walking so you can see its head.

Green beans and kohlrabi

Leftover hotpot style soup. The Chef also used venison from Paula and chard and kohlrabi leaves in eggrolls. Sauce for eggrolls was South Dakota honey from our esteemed visitor this week!

Afternoon and evening

Argiope spider. We call them banana spiders for the yellow but I think most people call them garden spiders.
Missouri fluttermill primrose in the rock/sedum garden continues to bloom!
Many tomatoes along with kohlrabi.
A caterpillar on cilantro. Maybe a cutworm? It looks familiar…
Uzbek golden carrots! Excited to try them… I harvested a bit early on two. Oops.
Wes made hot pot style soup. It contains chard, kohlrabi stem and leaves, green beans, sweet peppers, onions, and green onions.
A view of the spread. We have a vaccinated guest!!

Side yard dirt moving on Friday

I’m getting the last bed much smoother and dirt on lawn much more level. Was able to do this on Friday evening as no rain since Thursday.
Pasta from scratch topped with a mix of garden and store tomatoes, and garden oregano.

Quarter Gram = 1.76 kg

I left this zucchini too long and it was 1.76 kg (about 3.9 pounds). Gram the cat weighs about 14 pounds last we weighed him.
Paula’s moss rose has a lovely flower!
Briar yawns. Photography of plants is borrrriiiiing.
Several inches of rain is settling down dirt over geothermal pipes nicely. Once it’s not slippery mud, I’ll go spread it out more and continue leveling and shaping.
You can see seedling ‘Will Rogers’ variety red zinnias on the right, and harder to see are ‘burning embers’ Linnaeus marigold seedlings near the peach tree, for quick orange.
Briar looks over green and yellow bed. A triangle of Fordham giant chard with lacinato kale in the middle. The two scraggly plants are coreopsis recovering from being potted up for a month. Around it are dwarf marigold seedlings for more quick yellow.
‘Country gentleman’ sweet corn is flowering.
Supervisor exhausted by his earlier brush with the monster zucchini.
Book “Bean by Bean: a cookbook” by Crescent Dragonwagon. Lent by the Bean Queen herself, thanks Heather! Lots of interesting bean trivia. More focused on cooking than bean varieties (ie differences among Lima, green, cowpeas, lentils, etc, not varieties within those).

French onion soup

First we must get approval of herbs (moss curled parsley) from the sous chef.
The cooking begins.
French onion soup with a side of chicken. Onions and parsley from the garden.

Assorted day off activities and observations

Several strawberry runners took root so I snipped the runners.
I set out a tray of dirt to try to capture more strawberry runners.
The Chef helped me cut down the yaupon holly that was planted in a bad spot. It kept hitting the garage roof and gutter. Nine of ten water barrels are now in place for use!
Dinner… I made it this time. It includes a few of the new tomatoes (as well as a store tomato) and fresh garden basil and oregano.
Got mail!!
Drying coriander (the cilantro seeds) for later harvest!
Tepary beans reaching up!
Wild poinsettia (A volunteer).
The prairie and its rain barrel.
Rudbeckia is looking great.
A true bug.
Standing cypress about to bloom!