Thursday, August 6, 2015

Been so busy and having a hard time remembering where i left off.  Time seems to fly and i realise how much has gone by since my last entry.

The cherries were just beginning to turn pink last time and things were looking ok,  the woodchuck had only just started to cause trouble....

these first pics are from early July:



This is how the cherries ended up.


There weren't a lot for the first year of course, but the color was great and the flavor was nice though more tart than i had hoped.  Maybe they get sweeter as the plant matures or they just need sugar when processed.


The color continued to deepen a few more days later.


I have gotten some eggplant,  the flowers are nice enough.


Luna moths are pretty too.


I have gotten some long turnips too, and there are more coming every few days still.  They are good with roasts and stews. They are called Hinona Kabu.  When they are ready,  they raise themselves out of the ground and the exposed shoulders become purple.


Seaberries continued to grow



The gojiberries have been satisfyingly plentiful.   I have no pictures,  but the blueberries have had their best year yet.


The nice neighbors finally cut down that tree that has been breathing down our roof's neck.  This being removed has allowed much more sun to the side bed where many of the berries and the cherry tree is.


This is the full garden shot on 7/13/15



This is the "mouse melon" plant on the same day.


It is very much a miniature plant in all ways. Tiny tendrils,  minute flowers.



 It has since grown quite a bit and produced a few samples which were nice to have. More pics will appear below.

Flavor burst peppers:

These have done well and are tasty,  heavy producers of sweet peppers.

Tomatoes....before i lost control of them once again.


Adirondak potato flower:

Lots of apples:


Yard long bean plants


Aphid infestation on the Stanley prune plum



Short video of a female ruby throated humming bird in our yard- if it loads and plays correctly. Its a lower resolution video anyway.


One of the eggplants after the woodchuck began going after those.



Woodchuck taste-test on the sunflowers

Woodchuck claw marks on the sheet plastic.

Normally they just come to eat,  this one liked to dig and wallow.  Not sure if it was reacting to the habanero pepper spray i made to spray on the plants in hopes of deterring its eating.  It didn't work in the long run.

And then on 7/28/15,  i came home from work to find this:



And what that did to my garden:


I won't be using this plastic again next year like i had hoped to. Will have to buy new.










I did get a cucumber after that,  this was at least unblemished by the falling ice missiles.


A few days later,  the production continued mostly unchecked



The biggest Flavorburst pepper so far. This was a couple days ago. Many of the fruit had been hit by the hail but this one was fine all around.


Here's a fruit that the "mouse melon" produced. We got a good handful more of them this morning. They go by a few common names other than "mouse melon",  like Mexican Sour Gherkin, "cucamelon" and others.  They have a tart cucumbery taste,  not bitter but citrusy. The inside is a little jelly-like with the seeds,  like horned melon,  the skin is a bit hard but not unpleasant,  its more of a thin rind really.  I will grow them again next year.




Well,  that is all the pictures i have for now.  I hope to have another catch-up post in the next day or so.