the little wild kingdom

[flowerbug]

2 worms this morning. *whew* it makes it so much easier to find the worms when you clip off the damage.

 

[flowerbug]

4 worms yesterday, 1 this morning. getting there! tomatoes starting to ripen enough that we can pick a few for eating. probably will be canning next week. we'll see... mowing today so that will be about it for me in the gardens. talked Mom into watering for me, even if there is a chance of rain tomorrow the gardens can all use a good soaking - i never count on the forecasts.

 

[flowerbug]

weeded this morning and picked some beans then garden club which had the three of us. good to talk to people and see how they were doing in the gardens. also gave away some green onion seeds to a person who stopped in to say hi to one of the others.

 

[flowerbug]

beans from a cross i'm hoping is stable now (looks like it is) - these were harvested from the same plant about 4 days apart.

finished weeding the North Garden and then transplanted some more ground covers to get some more erosion control layers going. it looks a lot better with green on there instead of bare dirt (plus it's a lot fewer weeds). if you look closely in the left and some of the ridges and slopes you might be able to see the transplants that were watered in and getting ready to take over their new corner of the world. i still have a few layers to go, but it's getting there... the lack of bean plants in the central area back there is due to deer eating most of them.

from another angle that i don't usually take a picture standing in that spot. showing some of the other decorations around that area (and the front birdbath).

the Red Lucifer out front also has been grazed pretty heavily but they didn't get all the flowers. too bad the hummingbirds won't fly at night and defend their flowers... perhaps i need to get them some night goggles?

i thought of Mom when taking this one as i know she likes those close up and personal kinds of flower pictures. and she does like it so we'll add it to her folder for printing some out.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Really enjoy your pics!

 

[flowerbug]

picked and canned 21 quarts of tomatoes today (with Mom's help), raining a lot now, checking water works, most holding up ok so far, need to repair one that a mole undermined. looks like my temporary stomp the tunnel shut worked ok for now. the entire lower part of the garden can hold another foot or more of water. i won't mind if the beans in there get flooded out, there's not many left anyways.

the River Nile is running again so that means we've picked up a lot of rain quickly. it hasn't run much at all since spring. some work i did on it was not affected when i went out a while ago but if it runs hard it will be interesting to see what changes. it still needs a lot of work at the end where i started so...

 

[flowerbug]

beans from a cross i'm hoping is stable now (looks like it is) - these were harvested from the same plant about 4 days apart.

picked dry beans of these today from the garden where they were direct sown on Jun 5th, there's still plenty more green or yellow pods yet to go too so that's good.

i like beans that finish early enough that i don't have to worry about them finishing before it gets frosty out there. so this bean is hitting yet another of my important requirements for a new bean (that it is early enough).

also picked some of the other beans that were early enough to have some dry pods.

 

[flowerbug]

today will be a light garden day, just a few weeds i want to get out of there before they drop seeds all over.

some beans that i shelled out yesterday and took a picture of right away before they got darker (and smaller) as they dry down. at the shelly stage they can have quite a bit of a different color. these are a bean i call Sunrise (because they are a selection from another bean i call Sunset which is more orange than pink).

 

[flowerbug]

and now for something completely different...

what kind of creature would you call this?

 

[flowerbug]

in shelling out some odd pods yesterday i came across these so i had to try to get a picture while they were fresh.

probably a relative of a bean called Huey.