Recently in fruits and veggies Category

My aunt is going to be very pleased -- she gave me this hummingbird feeder, and look who stopped by to visit!

That's a Black-Eyed Susan vine climbing the trellis. I didn't realize how nicely matched it is with the pretty feeder. I mean, I did that on purpose. Yeah.

The other, more visibly red feeder often gets the most attention. But it holds less sugar water, so I'm happy that both are being used. 

  Do you see the pollen on the little hummingbird's beak above? Someone has been visiting flowers! Hurray for our flying, humming pollinators.

I've tried again and again to get a good picture of a hummingbird visiting one of our blooms -- usually they come out blurry because the birds dart off so fast. And then this morning...

The little lady usually doesn't let me get too close when she's at a bloom -- she is much more tolerant when she's at the feeder. Perhaps she's getting used to me and will let me get more flower shots, given the progress above. She used to visit the Salvias, but when the Standing Cypress started blooming, it became her favorite.

The Cinnamon Sun has produced a lovely bouquet. All the flowers are still above the roofline, though. I'm waiting for the lower buds to open up so I can really study the blooms easily.

We've had a bit of rain with the tropical systems happening in the Gulf of Mexico -- it made for a pleasant relaxed time in the garden. This male Queen butterfly took a long rest on a lantana.

How do you ID a Queen, and a male from female? Many people often mistake Queens for Monarchs, easy to do because they really are lookalike cousins. Soldiers make it even more confusing, and then there are the mimic Viceroys, too! Take a look at the photo again, this time with labels.

If you'd like more info on IDing the lookalike cousins, click here.

Also resting on the Lantana was this handsome damselfly. I'm needing a nap, just watching these guys. Perhaps the overcast day has something to do with that, too.

We've had another butterfly release from the Caterpillar Hotel! A black swallowtail emerged and took its time resting and drying its wings. I hope it came from the brown chrysalis from awhile back -- I was worried about it taking too long. Now I've got so many chrysalises that I can't tell which came first.

Soon the swallowtail headed over to the butterfly bush for a longer rest. Within a few minutes later, it flew away for its grown-up adventures.

I'm eagerly watching for the Giant Swallowtails to emerge. How can they fit in such a tiny shape?

Good news on the tomato front. Over several days we devoured tons of homegrown Romas in homemade spaghetti sauce, and now the Brandywines are starting to produce.

Is that crown an indication of how big the tomato will become? I won't eat these myself -- but I hope they'll turn out so I can give them to friends and neighbors. I'm a cooked-tomato kind of girl.

I'm also a pomegranate kind of girl! Lookee, lookee!

Ohhhhhhhh, happy day. I've been waiting for two years to find Giant Swallowtail caterpillars munching on our Wafer Ash Trees (also known as Hop Trees). These trees were some of the very first plants we chose for our wildlife habitat, and I've been waiting and waiting for the those big, gorgeous butterflies to find them. Time and again over the past two years I searched, getting my hopes up when noting the occasional bird poop on the foliage, only to discover it was REAL bird poop. But look what I found today! Real bird poop caterpillars!

Aren't they beautiful?!!! Yes, and gross, too. I'm completely convinced that these caterpillars have the best camouflage of any creature in the world.

Not so much "camouflage," though -- they really are quite out in the open, saying "Here we are!" But they sure don't look like anything I'd want to eat if I were a bird. We actually found three of them. I hope, I hope... that I'll get to watch them through chrysalis and butterfly stage. FYI, they also like lemon trees, lime trees, and other citrus trees, so if you don't have Wafer Ash, look for them on your citrus trees.

And whoa -- another discovery! We have ripe Roma tomatoes! It's official -- I have bird poop AND I'm a successful tomato gardener!

Happy, happy day.

I love the rain. Everything just looks so green afterwards.

 But even without the heavy rainfall this week, which I was so grateful for (by the way Austinites -- you can thank me for the rain on Wednesday because it was my watering day and I got up and watered-- Murphy's Law was in full effect, because the rain showed up that evening... now if you got hail, too, that's not my fault...), this year we are enjoying massive growth of pretty much everything in the garden. I suppose that sounds reasonable, as in the plant world we are in Year 2, at least for some of our plants -- the rest are still young. Following the saying "Sleep, Creep, then Leap" -- it is clear that our plants are enjoying a growth spurt!

I am envisioning a garden of giants before long -- the thought crossed my mind that I might have to trim some of these back at some point. Whoa, that's too much for this girl to think about right now.

But take a look at this Rock Rose, one that I don't even remember planting in that spot. It's massive. Right now I'm just letting it do its thing, but I'm sure that other gardeners are wisely shaking their head, saying that I'm going to be dealing with lots of little Pavonia babies everywhere and soon. (Here's where I'll tell you that one of my other Pavonias already made lots of babies, as I discovered a couple of days ago. And it was a much smaller plant!)

 On the plus side, I hope that the natural shade that the larger plants in the butterfly garden will provide this summer will help the smaller ones get through the heat and sun. Downside is that right now everything appears to be the same height. Somewhere in the middle of all that is a Texas Kidneywood, as well as a Barbados Cherry, which at some point should provide the height variation the garden needs. They need to be in their Leap Year, too! 

All around the garden, I've got new plants I'm excitedly watching. Exotic Love Vine, an annual vine from Mexico and Central/South America, still hasn't produced any flowers, but I find myself admiring its beautiful leaves everyday. I guess the love effect is already, well, in effect, even without the amazing blooms it hopefully will produce. Maybe they bloom in fall.

Now check out this great stem -- hoho, Great Stem.

Now at 4-foot tall, this Cinnamon Sunflower is already bigger than some of my trees. Still no evidence of blooms. The leaves themselves are the biggest leaves of any plant I have on the entire property. For comparison, I placed a Pomegranate leaf on one of the Sunflower leaves -- I still don't think it does it justice.

For the record, the Cinnamon Sunflower's growth is putting the Giant Sunflower's growth to shame. I haven't taken pictures of the Giant yet, so it better do some catching up!

The Passionflower is blooming like mad. I'm still waiting for the Fritillaries to show up.

But here's a little Phaon Crescent come to visit.

The Purple Coneflowers are doing some strange things this year, but at least they are officially blooming. Some big, some small, some tall, some flat, some wide, some droopy...

This odd Coneflower has a striped appearance.

Speaking of Great Stems (giggle), here's another one. Check out the thorns on this wee tree, a Toothache Tree, or Prickly Ash. The thorns are currently longer than the stem is wide!

We're fortunate to have two species growing -- Zanthoxylum hirsutum (shown) and Zanthoxylum clava-herculis (very much still a sapling). If you haven't heard of these trees, they're fun. Chew on a leaf and your mouth goes numb for a few minutes. Back in the old days, they served to help with toothaches, hence the name. Bonus -- a larval host for the Giant Swallowtail butterfly! I look forward to our trees getting bigger.

Venturing back to the butterfly garden, I paused to admire a strawberry-like annual, the Gomphrena, that I spur of the moment planted a couple of weeks ago. It's a dwarf compared to the older perennials, but I appreciate the red color that was needed in the garden.

And ugh, a decision to make. This rogue not-native Lantana has popped up in the yard near the pond. Now I have to decide whether to pull it. This is why I stick to the native Lantana urticoides/horrida (Texas Lantana--has orange/yellow/red blooms) -- I don't want to contribute to the easily-spread other kind. I know where it came from, too -- my neighbor had one. Had. I notice she pulled it out this year.

Over in the veggie garden, I discovered an abundance of peppers! Garden Salsa peppers, and they are inspiring the Mexican meal we will have tonight. I didn't even see them start out as babies, and here they are.

Meanwhile, their leaves are getting munched by these little culprits -- tiny (but pretty) grasshoppers. The admiration stops there. They are munching on my peppers, my tomatoes, and my Exotic Love Vine. Stop it, grasshoppers!

The tomatoes are certainly growing up. They've outgrown their cages, keep trying to topple over, and so bushy I'm feeling a little concerned. Next time, I'm going for the big collapsible and way over-priced Texas cages.

The runner beans have grown up past the trellis. I'm hoping we'll actually get some beans before the heat of the summer really hits us. I feel we're pushing the season a bit.

And the perennial Bell Pepper is producing fruit again. I look at this plant in wonder -- it survived last year's terribly hot summer, made it through fall and winter without any attention from me, and here it is, still growing. I didn't know they could do that. Talk about pushing seasons!

Plants aren't the only things growing up around here. I'm about to have a teenager in the house (egads). And at 12, he's already 6-feet tall. We're going to do a final "kid" measure tomorrow, the day before he turns 13.

And these fledgling cardinals showed up this morning. Three of them. I love how their feathers are in transition. Mama and papa should be proud! You can tell my blood sugar was dropping at the time -- the camera was shaking! I'd eaten breakfast, but only just. Not enough time to hit the bloodstream, I guess.

I'm pleased that birds are finally starting to pay attention to the thistle feeder. I abandoned the thistle socks awhile back due to the damage the eager birds were doing -- I kept having to replace the feeders. But wow, they did love those socks. It's not off the project list -- I just needed a regular feeder to keep around constantly.

Yeah, I see you squirrel. I know what you're up to. Yeah, I know you see me, too. And yes, I saw you on the birdfeeder this morning. I noticed the young squirrel nearby, too, watching you do it. Naughty squirrel.

So the organic garden is growing up. The birds are growing up. The squirrels are growing up. My kids are growing up. And I guess the evidence is there that this gardener is growing up, too. If I haven't already done it, I guess I have to do away with my newbie status officially, my crutch when I don't know what in the world is going on in my garden. But the greenery around means I must have done something right, newbie or not. If in doubt, add compost -- that's my motto! I'm loving it and ready for more.

For a look back at the garden beginnings through its first year, visit this page.

In this amazing world, to me every creature is fascinating and beautiful in its own way. Nature has a way of showing off the remarkable, and it's like an addictive thrill for me to find and watch nature in action -- the way a tiny jumping spider stalks the much larger ant, the way a bird tilts its head to watch for predators while it eats, the different pitches of the mating sounds of the male toads croaking by the pond. I've been studying nature my whole life, and it never ceases to amaze me.

When nature is left to its own devices, a balance of predator and prey is the expected result, and the natural dynamics of an ecosystem in their own right are fascinating. Even now I feel the shock of climbing a ladder years ago to peer at new baby birds in a nest, only to discover a snake actively swallowing the last baby bird there. But it was nature in action, and while my heart was broken, I used it as an opportunity to teach my young children that the snake has a right to live as much as the little birds, and while we might not like what happened, it's nature. And then we talked about the hinged jaws of a snake, and all was good.

So what makes a wildlife lover become executioner, a god deciding who shall live and who shall die? How can one be absolutely dedicated to gardening for wildlife and seeking out the fascination that nature inspires, then cross the line to what feels like heartless murder?

I've already crossed the line to actively killing fire ants in my yard. Anyone who has ever been bitten and stung, especially repeatedly, knows why these invasive insects are such a serious danger and problem. For immediate control, we use the boiling water method, but I also use beneficial nematodes and organic bait to help control these aggressive and painfully fierce armies of ants. Not only am I doing this to discourage a rampant problem from growing worse, but I'm a mother protecting her family from danger. So, easy justification.

I also have crossed the line to removal by hand of spotted cucumber beetles, aphids, stink bugs, grasshoppers, and a few others. But now I face a new foe, and a new dilemma. My tomatoes are in danger... from a most beautiful pest.

This is my first year growing tomatoes -- Romas, Brandywines, and Tomatillos-- and so far so good. The bushes are outgrowing their cages and already need new support.

  The young Roma tomatoes are plentiful, and the flowers on the Brandywines let me know they aren't far behind. The tomatillos are younger but well on their way.

But the other night, a friend came over to share a birthday key lime pie I'd made my husband, and we ventured outside in the dark with flashlight in hand to view my enormous tomato bushes. My friend had been talking about a little green worm he'd found munching on his tomatoes at home, and wouldn't you know when he reached out to my tomatoes in the dark, he found a "squishy" creature on my tomatoes, too!

It was a hornworm -- specifically a tobacco hornworm, designated by the red horn on its end. We brought it back into the house and watched it munch away on the leaf we'd brought back with it (there were actually two -- see the small one there as well?). It became the table centerpiece and primary topic of conversation as we munched on key lime pie and it on its tomato leaf. We watched it munch and poop and munch some more -- yes, now you know how far I'll go to study nature. And we truly admired its beauty --a tobacco hornworm and its counterpart the tomato hornworm are gorgeous as far as caterpillars go, and the large sphinx moths they become are beautiful, too.

 But we also discussed the dilemma I was in. If I let it live and go back to feasting on my tomato plants, its voracious appetite would defoliate my plants in a flash and leave holes in my young tomatoes. But after an evening of studying the little guy, could I just brutally murder this lovely green caterpillar just innocently munching on the leaves its mama left it on? Was this the Last Supper?

      Ultimately I decided not to dwell on the pending demise of this pretty caterpillar. I knew the outcome the moment we'd found it. The fact is, I have an investment in the vegetable garden, and while many plants elsewhere in my yard are chosen for the wildlife that depend on them, my tomatoes are there for my family. Hornworms have a history of being pretty terrible pests, and if I let this one live, more will come to my tomatoes.

I did give it a home for the night and a bit of breakfast (the Last Breakfast, as it were) while I looked for its siblings on my tomato plants. I couldn't find anymore, but I suspect they are just quite adept at blending in. And in the morning daylight, the true beauty of the caterpillar was apparent. Look at how the lines on its body eventually converge to form the horn.

With sadness, this morning the caterpillar will go to the bird feeder tray. I can't bring myself to do the deed, but perhaps a bird will do the job for me.

And there is the wildlife lover's dilemma. I'm having to send that which I admire to its doom, but maybe I can feel good that a bird will be happy. For what it's worth, little caterpillar, I'm sorry.

EDIT:

Umm, yeah. I just went outside to the tomatoes again and found this monster. They get rather fat and a little more intimidating when they're gigantic and practically bursting with your tomato plants inside them... And talk about the elephant of all caterpillar poop. I'm letting you imagine it rather than sharing a picture, but trust me, HUGE.

I saw this squirrel at the feeder when I put the caterpillars out. Think she'll eat them?

My husband's comment: Maybe the caterpillars will eat the squirrel.

I'm in love with my Wonderful pomegranate. No, really -- the variety is called Wonderful. And it's gorgeous. I planted it bare-root and leafless back in January, and now it's loaded with dark glossy leaves and bright tropical orange-red flowers --mega color. Love love love.

It's just as well that the second pomegranate tree I planted at the same time did not leaf out -- that would have been a lot of pomegranates! It's interesting that I planted that second tree where my Mexican Anacacho Orchid was struggling, and the orchid tree I moved over near the same area as the Wonderful pomegranate. Well, the Mexican anacacho is doing better than ever in its new spot, and the place where it once struggled and the second pomegranate died has now been leveled and is (at least for now) considered the dead zone.

Also wonderful in my yard, this time with the lower-case "w," is my new Yarrow. I want more.

And the Winecups are putting on their spectacular (dare I say, wonderful?) show before the heat gets unbearable.

The Winecups always threaten to take over the world before the sun forces them back to a manageable size. Right now they are encroaching on the Texas lantana, and I love the combination of colors.

  It's just... wonderful!

Back in July I posted this picture of a little creature on my fennel, hoping for an ID.

I was concerned it was a pest of some sort on my brand new veggie and herb seedlings, but I didn't kill it. But I found a few more over the summer, and I admit that a couple might not have survived my panicky pest control moments (especially when my cantaloupe was under attack by aphids). Well, today I found out what they are -- the rag mop larval stage of a kind of lady beetle (perhaps the Twospotted Lady Beetle, Adalia bipunctata). Good guys! The larva bears a remarkable resemblance to the mealybug destroyer larva, Cryptolaemus montrouzieri. Also a good guy!

I am so sorry, little larvae, those that I led to a premature demise. It will never, ever happen again, and I promise to watch out for all your cousins from now on!

It's interesting how the little lady beetle larvae resemble one of their favorite meals, the mealybug, but they also are great devourers of aphids and scale, the aphids being what they probably feasted on in my yard. Before... cry.

Brrr! It's cold out there! Whatever cold weather you northern folks in Canada and the U.S. are experiencing, somehow you've managed to send some our way. As I write this, it's 32 degrees Fahrenheit (freezing!) with a 25-degree windchill, and it's just early evening yet. That's cold for these here parts! Looks like the low might be 16 degrees. Good weather for stew, tonight's meal.

Yesterday the boys and I got out there and watered all the plants in the garden and also gave them a nice seaweed martini to give them an extra boost of nutrients to help protect them survive the freeze. I didn't cover everything with sheets this time -- just the citrus trees and a couple of tenders. I lost a few plants with the last freeze despite the fact that I covered them -- I'm just going to have to trust that the hardy of the hardy will survive again.

The exciting news is that my veggie garden, neglected over the holidays, has been growing with a vengeance despite my absence.

The strawberry plants are all alive, yay. And the carrots, lettuce, spinach, and kohlrabi are massive! They've been loving their little bed, though I wish I'd managed to give them some organic fertilizer over the holidays, just because I'm learning that they like that. The lettuce heads are so big that I wonder whether the leaves will taste bitter -- does lettuce do that? The spinach already is a little bitter, the leaves not being so "baby spinach" size as the seed package promised. It's our fault for not harvesting them all when small, I suppose.

Tonight we picked a couple of kohlrabi, though I understand they are troopers in a freeze. Aren't they beautiful? I left a little one back in the bed -- I hope it doesn't get lonely, but maybe the gigantic lettuce leaves will keep it company. And warm. *Edit: I was wrong, I left two in the bed, yay. And I plucked a bunch of lettuce and spinach to share with the neighbors before it all succumbed to the freeze.

Now all we need is for our kohlrabi-loving friends Stepan and Jen and their kids to come over and share our first kohlrabi harvest with us!

This fall I planted two varieties of carrots -- one shorter, one longer (the varieties escape me at the moment). The shorter variety has done fairly well -- but we gobbled the ones we picked before I got a decent picture. The one below was only mildly deformed and still tasty.

 The "longer" variety has proven to be weird. Look at how short and fat this one is. 

Unfortunately, it tasted rather bitter for a carrot. It sure has pretty color, though, doesn't it? I wonder if it was a nutrient thing (remember, I didn't fertilize over the holidays). The carrots certainly have plenty of depth to grow in, so that's not the issue.

We gave the yucky ones we harvested to the dogs, who thought the food odd but edible enough.

I need to use some of these carrot tops in a fresh smoothie -- yum! Did you know that the carrot greens are far more nutrient-rich than the orange part? It's important to use organic ones, though -- conventionally grown carrots are some of the top vegetables to expose people to pesticides.

Stay warm, all, unless you are in the southern hemisphere -- then stay cool!

Don't try this at home. Best to do so at your friend's house, using HIS jigsaw.

The annual party at Stepan and Jennifer's was a blast, and our three little pumpkins were big in spirit. They were small but mighty!

Sometimes size matters, but apparently not in pumpkins.

Here's the before.

The small pumpkins had remarkably thick rinds, but scooping out the guts was quick and easy.

And here our little pumpkins are joined by all their pumpkin friends who are all clearly compensating for something.

Here's where I should point out that Stepan's pumpkin was the biggest, but that's just not like me.

The boys like their pumpkins with ham.

I have to show off Stepan's young garden. Like our family, his family just can't keep their hands off the sugar snap peas. I noticed there weren't any available for me to sneakily munch on.

The rampant sugar pumpkin vine attempted to escape to the other side of the fence. See the young pumpkin in the corner? Stepan got to do the hand pollination thing. It's just so fun.

With Halloween around the corner, we all know that monsters might appear at any time of day or night, but the mere picking of our first orange sugar pumpkin brought to our garden...duhn Duhn DUHN... the Headless Horseman!

There it is, our first orange sugar baby.  

I spent the evening creating this Pumpkin Cheesecake with Chocolate Crust using a fantastic recipe I found at The Hungry Mouse. It's made with cognac. Enough said. Well, not enough -- I want to add kudos to Jessie for her detailed photos and instructions on the making of this yummy and divine dessert.

But alas, I confess that I resorted to canned pumpkin to make it. Here's what happened: When I cut open that little sugar pumpkin that passed all its tests on ripeness, I found that there was a fair amount of green mixed in with the orange inside. I honestly didn't know whether a little green was okay, but as the pumpkin was already cut open, I went ahead and scooped out the seeds and pulp and baked it. I figured I'd give it a taste test after baking and decide then what to do, all the while feeling pretty much like a pumpkin murderer knowing that there was a good chance I wouldn't use it.

Well, the baking went fine, but when I tasted it, my first sugar pumpkin, I couldn't tell whether it tasted the way it was supposed to, so I erred on the side of safety and decided to open a can of pumpkin. Well, it turns out that the canned pumpkin tasted exactly the same, so I could have used my little sugar pumpkin, but it was too late!

But the good news is that I remembered that pumpkin is good in a variety of ways for dogs, so the little orange-greenish pumpkin will not go to waste. I've already given some to the dogs, and tomorrow I hope to try my hand at making pumpkin dog treats, perfect for the holidays. I might also try making some muffins or other yummy human treat.

The cheesecake is for today's annual pumpkin carving party at our friends Stepan and Jennifer's house. It's our first year growing our own jack-o-lanterns, which have been behind schedule due to the hot summer and fall rains. But we chose three of our 10 growing pumpkins for early carving. Two are small, and one is still a bit green, but we grew these for carving, so carve them we will! The other seven pumpkins still on the vine will be for carving later in the week or for fall decorating.

My yard is going to look so empty after I have to remove all these pumpkin vines... 

Tonight my family enjoyed our first ever salad from our garden. I didn't pick enough, but I treaded through mud and rain with a flashlight to get what I did. Tonight we enjoyed mixed lettuce, two kinds of baby spinach, and sugar snap peas. Everything was delicious, but by far my favorites are the sugar snap peas. I look forward to more garden variety as the other veggies grow.

Allright, I confess. I've already been munching on the snap peas. Perhaps I should have called this the "first official harvest photograph." But it is true that tonight was the first time the rest of my family tried them. It counts, right?