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).

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.

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.

Peppers in the air

Purple beauty bell pepper in top planter and chocolate bell pepper in bottom planter. The Chef kindly hung the planters for me.
A broader view, with a dwarf tomato below.
The right side of the doorway had the other dwarf tomato, an extra purple beauty bell pepper, and the basil, along with my hat and some gardening tools in a basket.

Home to a mystery solved

Wes reported that the chijimisai greens were all eaten up, and they live in the plant window. This morning I found at least three Cabbage White caterpillars on them. The plants were only outside for part of a day or two!! Ugh!!!

New stuff

Read this good book Mom had. “A new garden ethic” by Benjamin Vogt. Definitely recommend it! Arguments for planting native plants and considering all our little friends and neighbors both animals and plants.
Paula, we’re borrowing this.
Seeds from home! Mom collected the common persimmon before I arrived.