Tag: loofah gourd

Posted on

Assorted stuff

Three hours to harvest and sort all this.
First canning tomato variety fruit. I can’t remember which one, I need to look at spreadsheet. The marker is buried in dirt. Update: is Amish Paste tomato.
Grass seeds did not wash away in rain. Whew.
Intruder alert!!
Possibly the frass of the offending hornworm???
Loofah gourd flower disintegrated in rain.
A jewel of rain on succulent.
Posted on

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.
Posted on

Last night new helper friend!! And other things yesterday

A fine Toad hanging out in the raised beds! Eat those earwigs please!! (May already be doing so as I have not seen many lately.)
Tomatillos Verdes doing well, I think I have enough now to make salsa verde enough to can.
Took garden cucumber to work today for a snack with ranch dressing.
Not entirely sure but I think a Bombus impatiens bumblebee on a loofah gourd flower. There were at least two of these bumbles around.
Helper!
Posted on

Primary colors!

The rainbow bed has blue, yellow, and red blooming now. The iris is helping but is not part of the actual beds.
Paula’s plant lounge.
A big bird grasshopper!
Love our banana spiders. I know we have at least three big ones around the garden in the front yard. This one has used the loofah gourd tendrils for its web anchors. Or the gourd is using the web as a support. Who knows!
The zinnia has opened!
Looking from the red end of the rainbow towards the street.
Posted on

Harvest and pruning

Surprise! A loofah gourd I didn’t plant has already reached the top of the trellis.
Chard, mini bell peppers, and Chimayó peppers.
The Chef found a cutworm in the chard.
I found a big beautiful banana spider (Argiope) in the tomatoes while I harvested! I made sure not to bother her more.
I finally determined the zucchini plant was a total loss to squash vine borers. I also made an executive decision to not let the very thriving white currant tomato plant shade out the moon and stars watermelon or the salvia or the rosemary. There’s only one plant and it’s a monster! I got over 900 g this evening alone.
All tidy now. I hope the watermelon will do better now.
I came inside to find this beautiful meal prepared by the Chef. Greens are chard from the garden and the bell pepper topping is mini bell peppers sliced. Yum. Nice and cool after working in the heat and humidity.
Posted on

Loofah central

Last year we grew a lot of loofah (luffa? I’ve seen both spellings) gourds and processed them (removing the outer skin from dried gourds) here in the front garden. Obviously a few seeds escaped!

We have almost two pounds of seeds if anyone wants to grow their own…
Posted on

Loofah processing

Wes has been cleaning and bleaching the loofahs and has put them out to dry in the yard on a string.

I’m surprised Briar didn’t bark at the loofahs. Maybe she’s getting jaded to human shenanigans.