Even wilder Saturday

Okra flower keeping its banker’s hours.
Taco week leftovers include garden potatoes and garden sweet peppers (a few mini bells and one Jimmy Nardallo sweet pepper) and tomatoes in cheese sauce.
Wet dog helping me water.
A kind friend who was moving gave me a string of solar lights which I put in the trellises today.  They have a switch, so I can have them on only as needed, so we don’t distract the night bugs from their business.

Wild times on a Friday night

I am extremely excited to report that we have the first baby moon and stars watermelon!!!
Same fruit. The other side is almost half yellow.
A wasp mimic robber fly! Love finding predators in the garden.
Butterfly milkweed in rainbow garden has grown quickly.
Dog and I came back inside. Briar promptly sat by her little brother.
I don’t think he minded, but her settling in seemed to remind him he could go places.
Abandoned for kitty snacks.

Caught in the act

Clematis terniflora flower
It turns out the mystery vine on the trellis is Clematis terniflora which is invasive and non-native. Gotta go!! That’s valuable bean trellis.
The Chef preparing okra for frying.
Okra plus breading for frying.
Dog and cat look at dinner of okra, meatloaf, and french fries.
Briar and Gram were very intrigued by the smells of dinner.

Thursday (yesterday)

Mom sent us seeds and Gracie hair from home!!
Gram wants to know what it’s about.
Briar focus on family smells again. Gram prefers dog ear.
Dog pleased. Cat interested in dog interest, would like dog food to be served though.
A geometrid moth sitting on passionvine leaf.
Left to right: New Kuroda, little finger, and Uzbek golden carrots. I picked the tiny one too early but it had a good taste.
Paula took her plants home so I decided to see if the basil from the plant window prefers this spot where her houseplants were so happy.

A week ago Saturday

Very excited to have a Gulf Fritillary in the yard!
I hope it found the passionvine in the back yard.
Made more salsa verde.
The Chef helpfully cans.
Ruff day gardening, need a nap.
Mail call!! Fall/winter peas, trying new ones.
A wildflower and an herb.
Trying again on parsnip this year with fresh seeds.

Winter indoor gardening ideas.

Early morning to early afternoon

Briar wanted to go out around 4am. I found this nibbled out Bisbee red cowpea flower.
A pair of Red-banded Hairstreaks mating. They must have started yesterday as I can’t imagine they were flying at night.
Alright actual morning, the chewed up flower still opened!
A bit of rain seems to have the Bisbee red cowpeas really blooming!
A tepary bean flower!
She had a piece of grass on her nose, silly dog.
A break indoors. Gram’s really lounging hard.
A close up of this hard working kitty cat.
A geometrid moth trapped in the shower. I released it outside.
Front porch is boring. She sits next to more strawberry runners I’m capturing in dirt for a coworker.
A Pearl Crescent sits on moon and stars watermelon leaf which is speckled with “stars”.
A different watermelon flowering.  I forget which variety.
A jumping spider patrolling the cushaw squash vine
Briar investigates.
An American Bumblebee (Bombus pennsylvanicus) in the loofah gourd flower.
The volunteer loofah gourds are really framing the rain barrel nicely.
A different loofah individual has made itself a ground cover for one of the apple trees.
The whole front garden.

Signs of life

Okra one
Okra two
A baby Madhu Ras melon! Excited for cantaloupe season.
A skipper, to be identified.
Three skippers on ironweed! The right two are female (middle) and male (right most) Sachems.
Frogfruit is really taking off!
There were at least two skippers like this so it might be a different individual than the first picture.
Good helper.

More from today

After their 30 days of cold stratification in the fridge, three butterfly milkweed are sprouting.
Female Sachem skipper on ironweed.
Briar is bored by garden examination. She likes the buffalograss to lay on though.
Bigger view of ironweed.
Briar was warm after the midday walk so I gave her an ice cube.
I pulled some Euphorbia from driveway and have put it in potato bag dirt over cardboard. See if it could work as a ground cover since it seems to be native.

Foods

Garden green beans (blue lake bush) with tonight’s dinner.
Rice to go with tacos on weekend. Garden tomatoes.
Refried beans to go with tacos
Refried beans before any frying. Mostly black teparies, a few vaqueros. All the remaining from last year’s harvest.