Category: Problems

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08/14/2022 straw bale potatoes

We lifted and sorted through our two straw bales of potatoes since the leaves were all eaten off by blister beetles. Upon moving the bales, we found eight bess beetles…
One fast isopod…
A second fast isopod…
Three baby house mice…
And one click beetle. This brings us to a total of 14 photographed animals plus a whole nest of ants and a small earwig that got away.
Compare this to our glorious harvest: ten potatoes from two bales. Paula is researching where we went wrong. I feel like maybe we should just go back to growing them in soil. (These experiments were my idea so I’m not blaming anyone else.). At least this year’s harvest is safer than last year’s crop of black widow spiders??
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07/30/2022 pretty!

Good thing I’ve planted the borer resistant cushaw squash! It is a native moth and it sure is pretty.
A Madhu ras cantaloupe melon slipped its vine so we figured it was ready.
The only red yucca that’s sprouted from Judy’s seeds is doing good in its new spot. It has a third leaf now.
Briar found Shackleton. He was not as happy as she was about this.
The dog corner of the prairie
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07/31/2022 garden and neighborhood

A Texas dandelion was open in the backyard prairie after a refreshing 1/10th inch of rain!
Waaaaalk plzzzzzz
We stopped to look at the vegetables on the way out to walk and this magnificent little jumping spider was on guard!
On our walk today, near the sidewalk there’s some unmowed area near a creek. Around this beautiful and native silver leaf nightshade you can see a lot of non native and invasive Johnson grass.
An American bumblebee was visiting the nightshade.
It has a lovely flower. Mom has one that volunteered in her garden area.
The plant has pretty flowers as it crept onto the sidewalk, but turned out to be a non native invasive species called Tribulus terrestris.
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07/22/2022 our first and only apple

We looked at the William’s pride apple tree today and the apple was missing!! Concern. We found it on the ground.
Sadly, the bottom half was rotted. I forgot that William’s pride is an early variety, so we should have picked sooner before it fell.
However, we cut off the bad part and the rest was quite delicious! A nice texture and magnificent smell!!
Gram was less impressed than we were.
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07/22/2022 new and complicated tomato

We realized we should think about when green vernissage tomatoes were ripe. They are supposed to have green flesh so this has turned out rather complicated. These ones are good. The green between the dark green stripes has a hint of yellow and translucency. They taste nice and the flesh isn’t mealy.
These ones are too soft. They are darker (I don’t think the picture shows well) and have some very soft spots. I tried one and it was bland with a mealy texture.
This tomato is too soft.
These green vernissage are all ripe except the very bright pale green one that has a thumbs down on it.
Bonus: Briar examines the topped up jar of bisbee gray cowpeas.

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07/18/2022

The Missouri fluttermill primroses just keep going! I’m wondering if it’s that I’m giving the new Justicia pilosella behind them water? It’s usually just a cup or two.
A mystery squash has emerged.
The green basils are getting sunscald on their leaves, I think. The amethyst basil are shaded a bit by the mealy blue sage and look better, but also wilt more often between watering.
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07/17/2022 straw bale sampling and other afternoon torture

We appear to have some potatoes in the straw bales.
The Granny Smith apple is having a hard time. The leaves are turning brittle and possibly sunscalded? We are on mandatory water conservation until the city pump is fixed Monday hopefully so the most I can do is hand water it. However, this apple tree is the most westward facing so maybe it’s just having problems.
Native Texas dandelion in backyard earlier.
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07/10/2022 purple

Paula tried one of our Purple Beauty Peppers and found it to be not very sweet, more green bell pepper taste still, and after looking online I think I picked them too early. Needs to be fully, deeply purple. I was worried about sunscald though (see the big tan area on the top one). They’ll still be good to use though.
The William’s Pride apple continues to get a flush of red. It’s hot out, me too!
I thought this grasshopper was really pretty. Not sure I’ve seen one like it before. We have lots of predator insects and birds in the yard so a few grasshoppers are no harm and lots of food for our other wild friends!
Zucchini begins.
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06/18/2022 onion time

Oops. We disturbed this big beautiful toad.
The toad hopped over our onions to nestle down under some bean plants. We turned the soaker hose on after we were done harvesting to make sure any other plants we disturbed weren’t too upset, and hopefully that will keep the toad safely into the cooler night too.
Three kinds of onion!
The shadiest bed has Inca pea beans planted over Thomas Laxton sugar peas which we removed as they were getting mildewy. Now the pea beans have room to grow.
Our supervisor chose a shady, cool corner.
Left are the dried Thomas Laxton sugar peas for next season. To the right are Oregon sugar pod II (the original kind I had) from earlier this spring. I am going to bleach them to prevent transfer of the mildew to next season. We also put the plant waste in the city yard waste bins as their composting gets much hotter than ours.