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Early-Mid August in the Edible Garden
We’re in a phase where I’m ready for the lull in the garden to end a bit, to have more of a haul every few days. Sure, we’re still picking peppers, and a bit of beans and okra here and there, but the abundance of late spring and early summer is gone. A few more weeks and we can think about sowing fall and winter crops. I have been gloriously excited about the Seminole pumpkin bed. Finally, we have fruit! There are at least five small pumpkins out there and one morning as I went out to try to help some pollination along by hand I noticed that the bumblebees…
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Raising Monarchs
One humid morning of July 22nd I had a few hours to myself as Chris took Forest to get a haircut and do a few errands. With a plethora of ways I could spend that time I opted to start working on weeding the flower garden path. I worked, head down, for the better part of an hour and a half and was making good progress. Taking a break to rest my neck from the strain of looking down, I happened to look up right at the moment a female monarch was visiting one of the milkweed patches. I watched her and sure enough her ovipositor was dotting the milkweed…
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Soaking in the Summer in the Flower Garden
I kept thinking that at some point this summer I would be all “caught up” in the flower garden, enough to sit around for about three days to enjoy the look into a non-existent state of garden homeostasis and relish the garden for a few moments. But, I never got around to that for a variety of factors. The weeds stayed in the path–though the path got weeded in parts–but it never made it to fully being weeded; the deer continually barged through, digging around for roots or whatnot, ripping plants to pieces or pulling them out of the ground in the meantime; and while I managed to keep one…
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Evening Ramble at Kleb Woods
One thing that was been hard for me to adjust to over the last three years since Forest was born was not being out and about in the evenings. Where our house is located, it makes driving anywhere a bit of a chore, about 20 minutes into town and then further for just about anything else, and having a newborn, then older baby, and then toddler, made going out after dinner or doing anything else not worth it. Before Forest was born Chris and I had a standing dinner night out during the week, and we attempted to keep that up during my maternity leave but it became clear evenings…
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June & July 2017 Book Report
I took a binge into fiction-land the last two months. Must be something about summer! Completed The Scottish Prisoner by Diana Gabaldon: In prep for Season 3 of Outlander I read this stand alone/Lord John Grey novel that takes place in the mists between book 2 and 3 in the Outlander storyline. This is a Jamie and Lord John centered story and gives some backstory on how they became friends instead of just guard and ward. It was captivating and I really enjoyed it, and it also answered some other outlying questions that we don’t get in the main series. Letters from Paris by Juliet Blackwell: This present day story…
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Late July in the Edible Garden
The current lull between crops is actually very soothing for me. Sure, there’s weed pulling, supplemental watering, and something I’m trying to be better about—fertilizing with fish emulsion—but there’s not a lot of harvesting going on. Blackberries are completed, the beans stop producing when it gets too hot—if we get a light front come through with rain there’s always a new flush of fruit—and squash and pumpkins have yet to begin producing. There’s a lot of growth, though. With the Seminole pumpkin going gangbusters throughout an entire bed, two squash plants attempting to thrive, and new rounds of beans being grown, I’m happy with this later summer growth. In addition,…
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Life Lately | July 2017
+In My Head I’ve got a lot on my mind these days, namely some things surrounding pollinators and separately, plastic. Both of these deserve their own blog posts to be expounding upon but I’ll get to that at a later date. Regarding pollinators, my main qualm is hornworm hate and the lack of interest in other pollinators other than the big two: monarchs and honeybees. Now, don’t get me wrong I love both—I grow milkweed for the monarchs and we have a honeybee hive. But I’m also very interested in creating an equal opportunity (mostly, I’m not sure we need mealybugs or scale.) wildlife habitat and trying to come to…
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A Golden Evening
I find myself longing for hikes and camping these days. Most everyone else not in the humid south is out enjoying hikes and adventures and here we are sweltering in Texas, hibernating indoors during the afternoons. This is fine, I enjoy letting Forest play upstairs for awhile as I read a book or do some chores. I peer outside the windows at the garden or pond, often falling into a daydream. It looks enticing to get out there but the heat has a way of making us cranky. I’ve actually been enjoying getting a run in at lunch twice a week with the searing sun beating down—the only thing I…
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A Summer Sunday
Every morning after I wake up I realize that I get to have coffee. And on weekends I realize I get to have it while sitting on the couch, relaxing. It’s such a small delight but it is one that makes me very happy. For the moment the house is quiet as Forest and Chris are on the porch working on a leaky faucet. There’s a rosy wolf snail crawling on the siding on the porch and someone is chainsawing across the pond. Last night’s thunderstorms are gone and we’ve got a warm and sunny morning gracing our day. Today I’m hoping for no rain so that I can do…
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Skipper + Agastache
Did you know there are a ton of skipper butterflies? I sat down yesterday to try to identify this one flitting about on this anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) the other afternoon and and I came up empty handed on an identification. There are a couple that look similar, and man, I lost patience pretty quickly with it, wishing I was flipping through a book instead of the internet. We have a butterfly book for Florida, Butterflies Through Binoculars, and it is helpful sometimes but the different region definitely makes it difficult to figure out solely from that book sometimes. I really love the anise hyssop for the sole fact it…