My actual reason for being out there was to apply about 3 wheelbarrow loads of compost to the area the potatoes were occupying. This is now holding the fall crops and about 15 sq feet of green beans. The "provider" variety is fast enough I think I can get a crop out of them and still have time to get lettuce and spinach sprouted before I have to put up plastic to keep the cold out. You can see the dark is of course compost, and the brownish is the "wonderful" clay soil that we are blessed with here in Syracuse.
Katydids can either be a nuisance or a boon depending on the variety, but I've seen two of these this year, and so far, neither really cared about the foliage, so I think they may be of the predatory variety, in which case...please make yourself at home.
Cicadas on the other hand are completely benign, as long as you don't mind the constant chirping hiss on a summer evening. 120 db at close range, these suckers really hum. This is not actually the bug itself, just the shell of the last nymph phase, they are everywhere this time of year.
these baby's are soooo sweet, its hard keeping enough ripe one on the vine, which I moved over next to the brandywines, in the hopes that some of their ethylene will start ripening the other tomatoes.
This is a bottle gourd flower, you don't see many unless you're out at dusk. They're a night bloomer, an uncommon but not unheard of practice in the plant kingdom. and the flowers, much like the rest of the plant are covered in a soft fine hair. Much nicer than your average squash leaf. This one is a male by the way.
This is an immature female:
In Other News:
A sad day as natural farming legend Masanobu Fukuoka died at 95. Domo arigato gozaimashita Fukuoka sensei.
Looks like my frontyard orchard will be at the forefront of the next emergence in home food production.
And just in case you thought it was going to be all high quality pictures from here on out...
The swiss chard plants that had gone to seed well, finally produced mature seed. A lot of it.
Want some?
And speaking of seed, the fennel flowers that are mostly pods now have started to dry into seed. When I cut the stem I could smell the liquorice, and having sampled a few, these do not disappoint. I'm going to be setting aside more for a special winter project.
And remember the sweetpea flowers of which there were two, well apparently there were three, I'm wondering if maybe this was a sign to not give up on them yet. I might just plant these next year to see if my luck improves.
I got another 2 cukes totaling 1lb 1 oz bringing my total to 38 lbs. More yellow squash (prolific indeed) is about two days away. Still no sign of the brandywines grrrrr.
And someone want to tell me what the hell this is doing in my yard in the middle of august!?
2 comments:
Haha, we can relate to the lovely clay soils here in Missouri. In some places you are lucky if you even have clay, in some areas you dig down a foot and you hit rock!
Nice to know about the katydids, we've seen some in the garden and they haven't bothered our plants either, so we'll assume they are the beneficial predatory variety.
You are right about the cicadas, they ARE loud. One landed on our porch the other day and it was ear piercing.
I am happy you showed those chard plant seeds. I am a very new gardener and wasn't sure how to get greens to go to seed or how to harvest the seeds. This might be a dumb question, but how do you do it?
The yellow squash in our garden have actually been more prolific than our zucchini, which I thought was weird, but I won't complain, I like the yellow squash better than zucchini.
Sorry to hear about the brandwines. We got a start from the farmer's market this year and it quickly died once we put it in the ground, which is a shame, they are so good!
I'm sorry, but I can't make out what the last picture is...
Trade you some peppers for squash and tomatoes.
I hope that leaf doesn't spell the early end of your season.
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