Saturday harvest and new lake

The original moon and stars watermelon is still here. The tendril is turning brown so it may be ready soon?
I harvested 162 g of oregano from the front and back yard. The Chef dehydrated it and removed the stems, and the final dry weight was 20 g.
Some blackjack oak acorns.
Walking towards a new lake.
Briar got to stand in the lake.
A leopard frog in the raised bed, hiding.

Afternoon harvest and repotting

Buckwheat is blooming.
Peruvian ground cherries are having a few potential fruits!
Paula and I repotted all the winter babies.
More babies.
The Missouri Yellow Watermelon weighs almost 12 lbs!
It’s so ripe that when I started to slice, it cracked open more on its own.
It was very tasty and sweet and crisp.
In the evening, I sliced some peppers for freezing. Green ones are jalapeños from our garden and red ones are serranos from a friend.
I made a small batch of salsa verde. Too little to can, so I froze it.

Fancy, that’ll teach me (Wednesday dinner)

Course 1: garlic lemon aioli with rolled prosciutto, atop bacon fat flatbread, on a bed of radicchio, drizzled with goji tomatillo (garden) syrup, topped with Leonberger cheese, and garnished with a mini bell pepper slice (garden) and white currant tomatoes (garden).
Course 2: venison bone broth made with carrots, celery, parsley (garden), with chopped onions (last of garden) and pearled barley, garnished with mini bell peppers (garden) and served with the bacon fat flatbread.
Course 3: braised venison shoulder seasoned with rosemary (garden), shiitake mushroom, serrano peppers (a friend’s garden), and onion (garden). Plated with radicchio, garlic lemon aioli, sliced tomatoes (garden), and a sea of goji tomatillo (garden) syrup.
In lieu of pictures of course 4 (fresh vanilla bean frozen custard a la Paula), here is the dog hoping for course 3. We ate the ice cream and didn’t take a picture. 😎

A second cantaloupe and more sad caterpillars/happy wasps

Second Madhu Ras melon and there are more on the vine!!
The “cleaner” side of one caterpillar.
The more parasitized side of the caterpillar.
Now two angles on a second cat.
Note that the pupae have opened, because of the little can lid looking parts.
Last night I sprinkled some more basil behind the cherries on the ground and also in the planter.
This saguaro cactus was given to me and had been over watered, so it’s got some rot on top and near bottom. Hopefully it will recover now that I’ve put it in hot sun and just watered it once after transplanted. It should rarely get rain on it on the porch.

Evening harvest and bean test

Tomatoes have started producing again a bit.
Checking to see if my guess that ugly ones are bad is correct. Seems generally so, if the idea that floating beans are no good is true.
Buckwheat flowers.
The Chef found a third egg case today. Our spider is working hard! Here she has a grasshopper.