Tag: moon and stars watermelon

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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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Happenings!

Yellow granex onions (white granex flowers appear same as far as I can tell).
Garlic flowers with cilantro/coriander flowers in background.
Mini bell pepper begins!
Another sweet pepper, this one called corbaci!
Moon and stars watermelon leaf. The fruit is speckled and honestly I think the leaf is that way too? I searched for online images yesterday and few showed the leaves well but I think it’s not a disease.