Category: Garden uses

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Bean 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).
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Garden clean up

Another Peruvian ground cherry finally ripened!! They seem to be a late year fruit. I hope it’s just the plants are big enough and not a day length sensitivity.
A standard ground cherry. Paula pointed out the lovely net effect on the husk. We found several like it.
True bugs!!!! There were dozens, grumpy we disturbed them. We put the leaves back after we got the ground cherries we were there for. Left some for them and next year’s seeding too.
The Chef was busy too.
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Last bits of vacation last week

Common persimmon tree. A native with edible fruit! Yum! I will try to sprout some.
Yum. Gracie likes to eat fallen ripe persimmons.
Mom served blackberry cobbler with homemade no churn ice cream too.
A different day: leftover juice and berries from the cobbler with shortbread and whipping cream.
Judy gave me this Mexican sage which Paula helped me plant as soon as I got home last Saturday.
Good vacation but time to hit the road!
Reunited!!!! I am informed the cat was profoundly lonesome, clingy, and annoying in the absence of his big sister.
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Saffron 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!
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Cubist ideal of melon

That’s what some of my coworkers called this moon and stars watermelon.
Dog for scale with the ideal melon and its very cute spotted friend.
I think they didn’t have enough time to ripen before the vine died (not even frost, just sort of browned and died) as they weren’t as sweet as I was expecting or hoping. But definitely not awful. I will try growing again.
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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.