I should have taken a photo of this bed a couple of days ago before I trimmed up the vine on the left hand side, closest to the beans. It’s already impossible to walk between the bed and the eggplants on the right, but I really didn’t want to have both sides overtaken. The melon in this bed is the Bidwell Casaba melon—and apparently tastes like orange sherbet. Two weeks ago we had several afternoons of thunderstorms which provided a much needed drenching for the beds. In turn the beds responded by exploding in new growth. This one has just kept on going. The vines of the melon aren’t the…

Chris came in last night for the closing of our house today. We made dinner then went to find a nonexistent ice cream shop (thanks Google Maps) before heading to the garden. The heat has been brutal this week, 100* many of the days; the beans can’t handle it and neither can a few other plants. Sometimes between moving we’ll have to find some time to do maintenance on our beds. I was busy watering the garden and Chris had been putting hoses on various beds and then piddling around. I went back up to the front of the garden and found him deep into picking figs off the Celeste…

Right now we have multiple beds with a variety of cucurbits growing. So far the melon varieties, such as this Charentais cantaloupe have been taking the heat well. I’m looking forward to eating some fresh fruit later this summer! A smaller staged version of the same cantaloupe. We had two plants of zucchini which have both bit the dust, as well as a smaller replacement zucchini we left in our grow-out pots too long. The first zucchini, this one pictured, bit the dust when someone in our community garden chopped the growing tip off. I was not pleased. Another zucchini, a golden variety, bit the dust one day due to…

I’ve been opting for my point and shoot lately for ease, and I’ve been enjoying it.

Back in late February/early March when I decided to plant all the flowers in the garden I also decided to plant some vines along the back fence. I found luffa seeds at a local garden center and immediately had to have those because they reminded me of Florida. We grew some along one of our fences there. I picked up those seeds and then planted some birdhouse gourds that were in the garden shed—they didn’t come up, mostly likely because they’d been in the shed through the heat of summer and were no longer viable. Instead I picked up more bottle gourds at the store to re-seed in their place.…

Early May to say, within the last week, could easily be designated the cucumber weeks of May. I’m almost willing to call the whole month the Cucumber Month but the last week the Sumter cucumbers have waned, letting the County Fairs take over as producing the abundance of fruit. I might be able to get another round of fruit out of the Sumters but I think they are done. The County Fairs have another few weeks. The amount of cucumbers we’ve been harvesting has been bordering on the ridiculous. I took some to Chris’ field site for the biologists and archaeologists to eat on, then he was home last week…

I love our variegated nasturium flowers. I think they are my favorite! The onions decide to start trying to flower and we pinched the flowers off to give the bulbs a bit more time to fatten up. We had some maroon bluebonnets decided to flower at the last minute. Sweet pea blossoms along the back fence line. The honeysuckle aroma is so delightful! I love walking in to the aroma! The County Fair cucumbers were planted a bit far apart so Chris helped them out by putting bamboo poles across so they could vine easier. Caterpillars were going crazy eating lettuce and other plants. We did a round of BT…