Category: Information

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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.
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Wednesday harvest and other friends

A lot of blue lake green beans.
Several tomato varieties are ripening.
UF garden gem was fine but all of the UF “W” at a similar color rotted and molded. Perhaps they don’t like the endless rain? I will watch more closely for ripening now too.
The Chef tied all the onions up for storage.
The mini bell peppers are more mini than I expected.
Corbaci peppers. I think the three little ones aren’t ready, but their plant died.
A mini bell pepper plant died too, in the same way, a rotting brown at the base.
This mushroom looks like it should be named lemon chiffon something.
Weighing the dried garlic.
Pseudothyris sp. moth resting on strawberry leaf.
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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).
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After work, garden times

Plant instructions said to let them readjust to the world before planting, so they are outside in indirect light to start.
Cilantro turning to coriander (the seed).
White currant tomato seeds saved from last year grew true to variety!!
Garlic harvest was very sparse. I guess the big February deep freeze got more than I thought.
Moon and stars watermelon leaf has such adorable “stars”! I can’t wait for the fruit.
Added more cardboard to my backyard Bermuda grass killing operation. Thank you Dad for this excellent giant cardboard!!
One area of Bermuda grass in the backyard seemed dead enough to reseed with buffalograss and curly mesquite grass.
A beautiful very smooth gray moth.
Maybe an Arctiid? I need to look it up.
My finger for scale.
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Opening the box

No time to plant until after work, but my live plants arrived this morning!! Very clever packaging. Source was Mountain Valley Growers, in California, a new place for me.
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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.
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Some seeds in the ground for my rainbow!

Also got mulch back in place over some cardboard. Seeds in ground are two kinds of marigolds (for yellow and orange), red zinnias, purple verbena (unfortunately a non native one that I ordered accidentally but it doesn’t sound awful), and standing cypress (which would bloom next year). I need to start butterfly milkweed (orange) cold stratifying.
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Sunday field trip to Lexington WMA

Butterfly milkweed.
Wild heliotrope.
Had leaves like greenthread but a yellow center on flower.
Compass plants all facing what we think was east.
Bigger view of the compass plant valley.
A megachilid bee on butterfly milkweed!
A whole field of Echinacea!
Rosa sp.
I know this one. I’ll look it up. Edit: wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), thanks Mom 🙂
Happy!!!!
A Dun Skipper on prairie bluets.
Asclepias viridiflora (thanks Abby and Mom!)
Shade good for fluffy dog.
Another view of the Echinacea field.
Note the matching orange dog in background.
I remember this plant.
She tried to get humans to join her but we’re no fun.