Tag: squash

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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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A day off for errands

Bisbee cowpeas flowering more
I liked the contrast on this one.
“Stubby” variety of okra.
An okra flower with a little sweat bee flying by!
This is the first okra flower I’ve seen in person here since they seem to keep banker’s hours.
A little green-striped cushaw squash!
Leaf of the squash is looking a bit rough.
Found another Madhu Ras melon! This one is bigger.
Salvia greggii “Diane” purple cultivar has bloomed! Now only waiting on the orange part of rainbow garden to bloom.
Whoa. I did not realize this cushaw squash was here!
A male Sachem on a Peruvian ground cherry. There is a flower in the background so I hope it’ll start producing soon.
Two immature fruits on Amish Paste tomato.
I think this is one of my stratification butterfly milkweed that I planted directly! Very excited!
A doodlebug (also known as an ant lion) trap waiting for some little critter to walk by! I feel very good about the predators in the garden right now, keeping plant-eaters in check, as I also saw a little brown snake slither away. We had a Dekay’s Brown Snake last year so it was probably that. May it be fat and happy on earwigs!
One of the rosemary bushes is blooming!
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Harvesting and trimming

Blue lake green beans, lots of tomatoes, and some tomatillos! This variety (verde) is actually maturing mid summer. Last year, Rio Grande Verde variety all waited til end of summer.
A single pod of runner bean. They have lots of flowers though!
A baby cushaw squash! Supposed to be resistant to squash vine borers and indeed the plant has yet been untouched.
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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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Quarter Gram = 1.76 kg

I left this zucchini too long and it was 1.76 kg (about 3.9 pounds). Gram the cat weighs about 14 pounds last we weighed him.
Paula’s moss rose has a lovely flower!
Briar yawns. Photography of plants is borrrriiiiing.
Several inches of rain is settling down dirt over geothermal pipes nicely. Once it’s not slippery mud, I’ll go spread it out more and continue leveling and shaping.
You can see seedling ‘Will Rogers’ variety red zinnias on the right, and harder to see are ‘burning embers’ Linnaeus marigold seedlings near the peach tree, for quick orange.
Briar looks over green and yellow bed. A triangle of Fordham giant chard with lacinato kale in the middle. The two scraggly plants are coreopsis recovering from being potted up for a month. Around it are dwarf marigold seedlings for more quick yellow.
‘Country gentleman’ sweet corn is flowering.
Supervisor exhausted by his earlier brush with the monster zucchini.
Book “Bean by Bean: a cookbook” by Crescent Dragonwagon. Lent by the Bean Queen herself, thanks Heather! Lots of interesting bean trivia. More focused on cooking than bean varieties (ie differences among Lima, green, cowpeas, lentils, etc, not varieties within those).
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Saturday pictures

The standing cypress on the left gets just a bit less sun than the towering thriving one on the right.  It’s cracking me up.
Rouge vif d’Etampes squash baby.
Greasy grits pole bean flowers.
First black vernissage tomato ripening!  I love these.  Small enough that they produce a lot, but big enough for canning.
Beetles bumble around and end up pollinating a lot of flowers.
Briar examines the potatoes growing in bags.  The big leaves are rouge vif d’Etampes squash.
Paula’s houseplant is happy.
A beetle out late at night.
Mexican Plum seedling from home is doing well and getting lots of water with our rainy spell.
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The weekend blog crossover episode

Baby zucchini harvest before departure.
Saw a tree cricket on the mint.
Rouge Vif d’Etampes squash has a baby.
Upon arrival to Texas, Junior Supervisor Briar and Senior Director Gracie take a break.
Mustard greens and rouge d’hiver lettuce from the garden in a fancy salad by Mom!
Mom has outdone herself again with fresh blackberry sorbet. The mint leaves are from my garden.
Upon return to Oklahoma, a very fine toad was seen. An excellent weekend visiting with our southern blog colleagues.
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Harvesting onions and hilling potatoes

6 kg of yellow granex onions.
4.5 kg white granex onions.
Briar smiles over the bounty. The Chef is going to chop and dehydrate the stems/leaves for green onions. About 1.6 kg of green onion from both varieties.
Put the last tub of city compost on the potatoes to “hill” them so they put out more roots. All the bags are fully opened up now.
Zucchini begins.
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Sunshine!!!

Okay I lied this picture is from when it was still cloudy. But the rest are sunny pictures. Anyways, the Hedeoma is getting larger.
You can see sun and shadows! I’m capturing strawberry runners to get more plants for elsewhere in yard.
A very small William’s pride apple!!
Garlic about to bloom (front) and in bloom (back, blurry, purplish).
Salvia greggii is doing beautifully!!
A lone zucchini bush considers flowering. Last year we had one plant but in a shadier spot and the flowers never “took” and eventually all the leaves got a nasty gray mildew or fungus or something. Hopefully it likes the sun better.