Sights from around Crooked Acres.
Our first ripe cantaloupe! Better than the ones from the grocery store, according to Fred.
Okra, sliced and about to go into the freezer. Once they were frozen, I poured them into a bag. This winter I’ll lay them on a cookie sheet, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and roast at 425 for 10 – 15 minutes.
My counter, such a mess. This picture is to show you that we’re getting tons of Sungold cherry tomatoes. That’s a pint jar in the bowl, for reference. Next year I’m growing ONE row of tomatoes, and I plan for half that row to be comprised of Sungolds. They’re the best cherry tomatoes you’ll ever eat, sweartogod.
Hanging on the refrigerator, between the lid from the box of L’Oreal with which I color my hair and the very long feather from the rooster’s tail (we found it in the chicken yard, didn’t pluck it from him) is a little bundle of catnip. I cut some off the catnip plant in the raised bed garden and hung it on the fridge to dry. Fred came downstairs yesterday morning to find Sugarbutt leaned over the top of the fridge, rubbing his whiskers on the bundle. He’s a total ‘niphead.
I love snarky magnets.
Honestly, this one should say “Excuse the mess, we have cats and can never have ANYTHING nice.”
Scoop! Hands! (If you’re very nice, I’ll repost my post this weekend about the many things you can do with Scoop! Hands!)
Hydrangeas are such drama queens. “GASP! I’m DYING! I’m THIRSTY! Please WATER ME!”
Our garden wagon. It comes in SO handy (it’s bigger than it looks!) and the thing I like best about it is that the back lifts up so you can dump whatever you have in the wagon wherever you want it to go. This comes in especially hand when I’ve used my Scoop! Hands! to pick up the pile of leaves and sticks by the side porch, and want to dump it all on the compost heap.
Autumn Clematis is starting to bloom!
Baby pecans are continuing to grow. I hope we get a good crop this year – it’s been two years since we got a decent crop, and we’re about to run out!
The wisteria’s doing its best to invade the back yard. We’ll keep cutting it back, it’ll keep growing. One day when we’re very old, we’ll give up and the wisteria will cover the house in one short summer, I bet.
Anybody know what those little black things are? Fred thinks maybe aphids. That’s one of our grape vines. Whatever those little black things are, the ants like them – in the morning, there’s a long line of ants crawling up that vine.
The watermelon plants (there are three) in the raised bed/ straw bale, are making a run for the border.
I posted these pictures small so that you big babies out there won’t have to look too closely and can just skip down to the next picture. What we have here is some sort of waspy sort of insect. I was out checking my raised garden, and this was hanging out on the purslane. When I looked closer, he appeared to be eating some sort of grub, and when I got even closer (but not too close, because waspy sort of insects scare me) I could see him holding what looked like a small tomato hornworm. So if you click on any of those pictures, you can go to Flickr and see them larger. Who can tell me what that waspy thing is?
Catnip!
The jalapenos have been coming in like gangbusters. Yesterday I made seven or eight (I don’t remember offhand) pints of sweet pickled jalapenos!
Cori, hanging out on the window sill.
Cilantro (left) and Ciara on the couch.
“What? I’m working on my tan!”
Cori’s spotted the birds.
Ciara always looks so appalled.
This picture makes me laugh.
Cori always makes herself at home.
Ciara, appalled again.
Sweet Miss Clove.
Joe Bob (alternate name: Joseph Robert McGee, when he’s being bad) is such a sweet boy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Previously
2010: Everybody loves Martin.
2009: No entry.
2008: Kara & babies.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
Yep – those are aphids! Ants love aphids – they just milk them! Best organic way is for ladybugs/beetles to hopefully arrive and eat the aphids! other organic way is spraying with diluted washing up liquid early mornings when it’s not too hot so the liquid doesn’t dry off. other yucky organic way is to wear sturdy gloves and run your fingers across each stem. 🙂
Oh but look at your produce!! WOW!! Well done you!!! Lovely and well worth growing!! Yay!!
Hello to the beautiful Spice Girls and Ciara! Joe Bob is adorable!! Take care
x
Ants farm aphids for their sugary secretions, the ants milk the aphids by rubbing them and then carry the sugar back to the nest.
look at that above old kitty just beat me to it!
Nice veggies and cute cats, it all looks lovely.
Awww, I was so excited that I actually knew something! (those are aphids, and Ants milk them) so I raced to the bottom, and 3 people have already beaten me to it!
Aphids are really common in the UK, maybe they’re not so common out there?
Wow, the Spices have hit that long, lanky stage! When did that happen? And Clove is turning from the cutest little ball of fluff into just the loveliest girl. Want!
I LOVE the Joe Bob “creeper” photo — peeping tom(cat)! He looks so much like our Buddy, especially in the one with the scratcher.
I’d say the wasp-like thing is a wasp.
You’re Welcome!
Some kinds of wasp take a grub, paralyze it, and bury it with a few eggs in it, then then the eggs hatch they eat the grub alive.
Isn’t nature grand?
Not sure if your wasp is that kind of wasp, though.
Your garden is AMAZING!!!! We have a backyard that we are doing absolutelynothingwith, so I told my DH that I may build some planters back there for next year, especially those cherry tomatoes.
As for the kitties, I love the picture of Cori looking out the window. The black stripe from her eye is sooo pretty.
Ciara has such a pretty tummy…
Oh I love Ciara and here beautiful white to offset the stripes. Gorgeous.
Love the garden (your own personal FarmVille!).
Joe Bob is a creeper, peeper.
Love each and every kitty photo as always…but that snarky fridge magnet made my day!!!
“Joe Bob (alternate name: Joseph Robert McGee, when he’s being bad) is such a sweet boy.”
And what’s he called when he’s stalking fosters? Funny, funny photo!
I have this whole sheet of snarky metal badges that I think you’d enjoy, now where is that jpeg…
Lovely photos. Lovely produce, lovely kitty-kats. awww….
Did the tornado and storms that happened a while back not have a major effect on your garden?
Thought you have black aphids at first, and you do. On pulling up the lower grape vine tip picture on flicker, Mealy Bugs!!! The white bits that look like cottony specks are mealy bugs with a large one upper-left-center at the tip of the new leaf on the tendril. The light colored little bugs of assorted very small sizes are also mealy bugs, mostly on the tendrils left-center. I’ve got a bumper crop of those this year. That is a wasp, yep, they take off with other mostly annoying insects to seal up for food in their nests. But really hard to get used to being around something that can sting and keep on stinging. (WoW that is some resolution on the flicker photo! Very nice work.)
KITTIES! Very cute kitties! It’s nice to see so much of your garden doing so well after the big scary storm.