Posted on January 2, 2023January 2, 202301/02/2023 Oklahoma selected tepary beans I have decided to mix our tepary beans next year to cross pollinate and see what does best here with our spring rainy season. This photo shows the general mix with three randomly selected handfuls (the three pictures below). The remaining beans will be eaten! I started with 1:1:1:2:3 mix of blue-speckled, yellow, San Ignacio, Pinacate, and black tepary beans in 2022, planted in same-variety blocks along the south trellis, plus a very small amount of the surviving wild type tepary beans (planted Aaap, Santa Catalina, Sycamore Canyon, and Kitt Peak varieties intermixed so whatever survived best from those) from nativeseeds.org). For 2023 and later (ie this upcoming season), we will plant these together and see what happens.
Posted on November 13, 2022November 13, 202211/13/2022 fluff Butterfly milkweed in garden are opening their pods. Took Briar for another walk at Saxon today. Saw a few juncos!
Posted on October 16, 2022October 16, 202210/16/2022 after 3/4” rain Heath asters from TX have started blooming. I think these may be sand lovegrass seedlings. I put them in a lot of pots with native flower seeds as a potential nurse plant. This is the Muhlenbergia schreberi grass from Abby. It has a fun common name. I wanted to ensure I don’t lose it or mistake it for something like a skinny bermudagrass in the shade. This is the planter of soil from Jeanne that had a big patch of annual Sedum nuttallii. There are a bunch of sedum-looking seedlings but also plenty of other interesting looking babies too!! I seeded these cowpen daisies pretty late and didn’t know if they’d come up until next year. Instead, they seem to have noticed the declining day length and have made the world’s tiniest cowpen daisy blooms. This is normally a medium size plant! At least one Carolina snailseed root from Abby has produced new leaves.
Posted on October 11, 2022October 12, 202210/09/2022 Saxon park Schinia gaurae moth (the clouded crimson) caterpillar on false gaura! We counted nine around our 1.75 mi loop. The tall rosettes of the false gaura were nice to see since they look just like my garden one. A Schinia moth I haven’t identified feeding on aster flowers. This bumblebee loved the Salvia azurea. Back of two spotted bumblebee where you can see the spots! Funnel web spider says no pictures, please. A tree cricket hiding on Liatris. The seed pod of a Baptisia. Mom said possibly B. australis var. minor Paula found two big beautiful lynx spider mommas! Wow! This is one guarding its egg sac. A tiny caterpillar on false gaura. The first Solomon’s seal I’ve seen in the wild! We have several in the yard but no idea if they’re volunteers or planted. Probably a buckwheat, the botany consulting committee says. Abby, Mom, and Jeanne also agreed this was probably a dwarf lead plant. Paula found a magnificent sumac leaf turning yellow to red. The Sumac is really turning beautiful reds all over!
Posted on October 3, 2022October 3, 202210/03/2022 Bean Club dinner and other excitement My colleague gave me these delicious tiny tomatoes from her sister’s garden east of here. She said it’s a hybrid between tommy toe and another variety and has bred true for two ish years! I’m saving some! A yellow iris by the rock garden. Polenta with cranberry beans from Bean Club and fancy sausage from California. Salad includes farm share peppers and the main mean also included summer squash from the farm share. A cooked cranberry bean. They were very creamy in texture! The cranberry bean broth was very savory. The Chef laughed at us taking a picture. Here’s some of the remaining cranberry beans. They have a tan base but occasionally the red speckles and stripes turn the bean almost completely red! You can see they are nice chunky big beans. Larger than the average pinto.
Posted on September 24, 202209/24/2022 rock garden The NPSOT plant sale rain lily has seeds! Another friend from that plant sale, the Justicia pilosella, seems much happier here up front in the sandy soil of the rock garden than it did in the backyard.
Posted on September 10, 2022September 10, 202209/10/2022 rain lily seed pod The rain lily seed pod has three lobes. It’s still green. A mistflower in a pot is flowering! None of the ones in the ground are flowering yet. The showy milkweed that died back earlier this summer is alive!!! Yay desert perennials. The Mexican sage from Judy has started to bloom!
Posted on September 4, 2022September 4, 202209/04/2022 seeds!!! The two leaf senna had at least two seed pods! The second plant doesn’t have any buds but is growing new leaves. This sprouted after another surprise rain this morning and I don’t know what it is. Cowpen daisies I bought are sprouting! The scurf pea (Psoralea/Pediomelium latestipulata) from Mom has its first adult leaf! Little seedlings sprouting. Could be what I planted (Scarlet globemallow), could be volunteers. More cowpen daisies in a pot where I put them and some Rosa sp from Mom from Fannin Co TX. Tiny seedlings in the soil from Jeanne that contains the annual Sedum nutallii! Little seedlings sprouting. Again, could be what I planted, could be volunteers. This hope is Verbena halei.
Posted on August 19, 2022August 19, 202208/19/2022 I tried cantaloupe in my oatmeal this morning, hoping it would be magical like peaches, but I think they’re best eaten cold and alone. The melon, not the person doing the eating. Gram is too tall to stretch under this chair. He came out from under the chair to stretch, then went back under the chair to continue observing his Doggie. Two new blooms on the two leaf senna!! I think one of the juniperleaf cuttings had some nearly ripe seeds on it and they sprouted!!! I kept them in standing water in the shade for the first few days as a cutting, then moved them to a dry spot but still in the shade, where they are now. Still watering every day. This is additionally interesting because the seeds I collected from the original juniperleaf in the winter have not sprouted anywhere I put them. I was reading today in Nokes’ germination book that sometimes fresher seeds don’t have such an impermeable seed coat. A few little grasses in the backyard where I sprinkled the native grass mix from Plants of the Southwest! The mix was blue grama and buffalograss.
Posted on August 14, 2022August 14, 202208/14/2022 fermenting slimy seeds I did some reading and it seems like we should actually be fermenting the canteloupe seeds, so I threw out the others (which were crunchy with dried goo/slime). Here’s the seeds from today’s snack. White currant tomato seeds looked pretty fermenty in the cupboard today so I rinsed them in the strainer and plopped them onto a paper towel. We set the paper towel by an air vent. This has worked for these seeds in the past, as this year’s plant is from harvested seeds.