Current Status

Current state of the garden:

• Sunflowers - 10 in bloom in the main sunflower location  - one "Mammoth" has a central disk about 8" across; however, most have central disks closer to 5 and 6 inches.  Both of the ones in Raised Bed 2 are blooming, as are two of the volunteers (from bird seed) near the nectarine tree.  About 10 more main buds.  Good soil, good water means that many of them look like they will have smaller "side buds" that will bloom later one.  Need to protect the ripening heads from birds and other creatures.
• Corn - first set is beginning to tassel.  Second set is growing strong, as well as the bush beans planted in between them.  The sunflowers planted between them, of course, have been devoured by some wildling.  I am thinking of planting more corn next weekend - a losing bet to get ripening ears of corn out of them; however, I am sure the chickens will enjoy tearing it up at the end of the season when they are let loose in the garden to eat and till things under.
• Bush beans - in full swing.  They will probably be done with their crop in a few weeks.  Then time to till them under.
• Dow Gawk (Asparagus or Yard Long Beans) - the ones in the corn are starting to flower; the new ones planted against the fence along the South are barely surviving.  The ones by the dead apple tree keep getting eaten up.
• Blackeye Peas and Purple Hull Peas - are both beginning to bloom and set tiny bean pods.  The blooms are lavender and turn brownish after pollination. A few more weeks and we will have "shelly peas."  One nice thing about them is that they hold the bean pods high above the plant, so they are easy to see.
• Cukes - They are producing the first of their flowers and fruits; however, I think the heat and water stress are causing them to ripen small and fast.  The 3 inch ones I plucked today were prickly and bitter.  But the chickens like 'em!
• Blue Bedder Salvia (Ornamental Sage) - Has so far survived critter depredations and has its first buds.  It is a perennial, so maybe I will get lucky and see them again next year.  I have 3 small plants that have survived so far.
• CA Poppies - 3 plants are barely surviving, and one is actually thriving and blooming.  One bloom is done, one is open, and 3 more will be ready later this week.  The plant is small, and the blooms are small, but perhaps next year's seed will sprout sooner and be stronger by this time of year.
• Morning Glories - in all locations, MGs and Moon Flowers are suffering from being too tasty.  They are prolific and vigorous, so the plants aren't dead, yet - but they don't actually get a chance to thrive.  A casualty of laziness and a disinclination to use synthetic chemicals.  I heard about a fermented solution of garlic and hot peppers that is supposed to keep critters away.  I might try some next year.
• Raspberry - lives and looks healthy - but not flower buds yet, so no fruit.  But it lives, so that is a grand improvement over its several predecessors.
• Strawberries - The runners from three hen-pecked plants have re-filled bed two, and I have foolish hopes that next year I will have strawberries to eat.
• Silver Thyme - done blooming, and now going to seed.
• Rosemary - finished blooming a while ago, but still sending up new shoots.  This is the longest into Summer that it has ever done so.  I wonder if it is because of our relatively cool weather, or if it is just because it is big and old enough to do so now, or some combination thereof.
• Oregano - some that I let go to flower looks lovely; the rest looks tired.  Much of it is getting woody.  I think it may be time to give it a sharp trimming so it will grow mostly on tender new stems next year.
• Melissa (Lemon Balm) - Looks sad and brown around the edges as it always does this time of year.
• Day Lilly - the one in sun has bloomed several times this season; the other two, not.  I should move the other two now so that they have time to become established before winter.  I am actually quite surprised that they came back this year - they were looking quite poorly at the end of last season.
• Desert Mallow - my original weed in Raised Bed One from several years ago is in great decline.  I think she is done.  The good news is, I sprinkled seed in Raised Bed Three last year, and one of her progeny has taken root there and is looking quite vigorous.  Perhaps at the end of this season, it will be time to rip out the original plant.
• Unknown summer squashes - probably yellow straight neck, yellow crook neck, a patty-pan and some more zukes.  Laziness means that I will be surprised when they produce.  They should be ready to bloom in about 4 more weeks - in time to get some good squash before frost.  They are, of course, planted too close together.  I cannot seem to bring myself to either plant further apart or to thin.

Ducky enjoying the kiddie wading pool.  They really are waterproof.

Harvest Begins

Gathered enough green beans today (and a tiny purple one that I couldn't resist) to actually have enough to eat as a side dish today.  There are still 30 or more tiny, tiny ones that will hopefully be ready to eat next weekend when I return home.

The harvest actually started in June with the first of the garlic.  This place is from last week - the last of the small garlics to be cured and the first little beans to be picked.

I just love the colors and textures of the hard necked garlics.  It was a cool, wet Spring, and many of the garlics did not bulb up as much as I expected.  Still, my house smells either delightful - or stinky - right now, depending how much one loves the stinky rose.

Herbs that were chopped fine and added to my home grown eggs this morning: a sage leaf, a touch of oregano, and some tender new growth from my rosemary. 

I worried about taking my eye off the zukes for 5 seconds to go on business travel.  While I did not find any that were baseball bat sized, I did find one that was as long and as thick around as my fore arm!  Won't have time to do anything with it, and there are 5 young ones on the vine right now, so I think I will slice it length-wise and let the chickies devour it tomorrow.

Critters in the Garden Day

Over a dozen sunflowers are blooming in various places in the garden - and the bees are intimately familiar with all of them.  Often times 2, 3 or more bees will be collecting pollen and nectar.  Note the pollen-filled legs of these buzzing ladies. (Click on the photo for a larger version)

Besides the buzzing of bustling, busy bees, there is also the humming of dragon flies as they patrol the skies for mosquitoes and other flying, biting things.  This one rests on the tip of my dead cherry tree.  See - laziness on my part (in clearing the dead tree) provides a place to relax for this mighty hunter!

 

Speaking of hunters, not only gatherers frequent the sunflowers.  Several of these spiders also frequent the sunflower disks. Their legs are a semi-translucent white color that picks up the yellow hue of the sunflowers - making them appear to be just a light yellow dot on the disk - nothing threatening looking at all.  I haven't seen what it eats, yet, but a number of little gnat-like creatures also seek sustenance from the sunflower, so I suspect those are what this arachnid hunts.

Another hunter, but not of the insect or arachnid family - a local lizard that frequents the garden.  Here it is chomping on an ant.  We are fairly used to one another, so if I move slowly, I can often get withing 3 feet of this one before it scampers off.  I try and back away before invading it's personal space, however, and I think this contributes to its tolerance of me.

Well, this critter is not allowed in the garden to place.  He continues the canine tradition of the "race track" around the garden/chicken run, and so runs his laps while I am puttering around inside the fence. 

A Sunflower Kind of Day

 

My little plot of 15 sunflowers planted early in the season is now beginning to bloom.  The short sunflower in the foreground was the first one to bloom and is facing East.  I'm not sure why the Mammoth in the background is not.  Maybe it didn't hear that sunflowers are all supposed to face East when they bloom?  My sunflowers never get very tall.  In the several years I have grown them, even Mammoth is lucky to top 5 feet tall.  Still, they are bright and cheerful, and if I can keep them from getting munched down to the ground when they are little, they will provide me with months of bloom.

Yes, that is real desert sunshine from behind the first sunflower to bloom this year.  While the disk is only about 4 inches across, the long petals make the flower head seem much larger.

Difficult to tell from the photos, but this is a Mammoth, and while it won't get to Mammoth proportions here in the desert, the center is a good six inches across.  If I can keep the critters off of it, it could provide a nice snack for the chickens in the middle of winter.

Blooming in bed number two - a dainty dwarf sunflower.  As it is supposed to, this one is happily facing East.

A promise of sunflower delights to come - a 4 inch flower head wrapped in layers of frilly green.  By the time I am back from business travel, the main sowing of sunflowers should be in full bloom.  Big, bold, bright - and edible to boot!

Spring Arrived for a Day, and now It is Summer

One day it was 70*F or so, and we all thought, "how nice." The next day it was 90*F.  And since then, for at least three weeks now, it has been pleasantly warm in the high eighties and low nineties.  Looks like a cool summer again this year - maybe only a few days in the triple digits?  If so, the garden will love it!

Two week old corn is two to three inches high.  What survived initial bird depredation (in spite of using a row cover), is now healthy and growing rapidly.  Planted out the second set this past weekend.  I may set out some more next weekend, but the beginning of July means that there is a 50-50 chance of a hard frost in September followed by several frost free weeks.  Still, if the third planting just turns out to be a place for the chickens to play, that works ok for me, too.

Ate a few peas yesterday.  Chickens like the shells, but the ducks thought I was throwing rocks or something, as they were not enthused about green things flying over the fence.  The chickens were all to happy to go into "shark attack" mode, however, and swarmed the pea shells.  Sorry, duckies.

Been feeding the ducks and chickens tufts of grass that still have the seeds in them.  The ducks like to thresh the seeds out with their bills while the chickens like to "scratch and attack" the grass stems until the seeds fall out and can be eaten.    The benefits to the birds are that they get some fresh food and exercise.  The benefit to me is grass weed reduction.  The benefit to the grass clump is that they get a trim and extra water and get to grow more seeds.

Egg production is in full swing.  Out of 15 hens, I am still getting 6-8 eggs a day.  In some ways, it is better than the 10-12 eggs a day that they laid in their prime. Still, it is almost like zucchini - be careful - if you stand still, I will hand you eggs!

I hate to jinx myself, but there may be a chance that I have morning glories this year.  I need to plant more.  I am babying along the 6 or 7 that I currently have.  They are getting one new little leaf every few days.  Hopefully they will hit critical mass soon and start climbing several inches a day.

Also looks like I will have more than two dozen sunflowers this year.  I planted a dozen or so more on Sunday, but it's getting late for planting sunflowers, too.  I have a set of volunteers from bird seed - we'll see how they do.

I am letting the garlic that is too small to bulb go to "seed," so to speak.  Their scapes will "flower" with tiny bulbils - each a tiny, tiny garlic.  If I time things right, I can plant out hundreds, which in a few years, will be almost big enough to use as planting stock.... or, I might just eat them.  I planted hot garlic, however, so they will definitely add a fiery zing to whatever I put them in.  Maybe put them in pasta sauce to mellow.

 

If you build it, they will come.

September Garden Status

The last sunflower is blooming, along with oregano, sweet marjoram, yellow squash and desert mallow.
 

Well, some days I actually feel like I had a real garden this year with an actual harvest.  A review of some of the crops:

• Birds and everything else will pluck out newly sprouted sunflower seeds and peas - must rig up some protection for them. At least a dozen sunflower sprouts and 100 pea sprouts were donated to the local wildlife.
• Garlic beds dug up a month or more in advance worked out very well - nice, soft, easy to plant beds. Ones not made up early are not nearly as easy to plant out. Now I am looking at planting some directly in unprepared beds, and that will be even worse, probably inhibiting good bulbing up in the spring.
• Sunflower seed heads need to be well protected or the wildlings will eat them all - even before they are mature. Chickies got very few this year, and there are none for the wild things for the winter. Sunflower leaves,however, made excellent chicken greens all summer long. And after the sunflower seeds had been consumed by the wild things, I pulled the stalks out and the chickens had a riotous good time eating up the leaves and pecking at the seed head itself.
• Collards grew very well under the shade of the large, yellow squash leaves. Next year, need to grow more. The chickies really like collards, and I added some to our salads.
• Spinach was a great success. I only half-hearted saved seeds. Some of the ones I saved did sprout when planted in the fall, but I don't know if Matador is open pollinated, so I didn't really work at it. Chickies and Granddaughter indulged in much spring spinach.
• No matter how many edible pod peas that I grow, there is never enough! I like to eat them right off the vine. The chickies like the peas, the pods (from ones that have grown too old to eat more than the peas themselves), and the leaves.
• Peas sown in September will probably not ripen before the first hard frost - still, at least they will make some nice greens for the chickens.
• Bi-colored corn was stunted as usual, but flood watering them produced a significantly higher number of ears of corn this year. Pollination was spotty, so most ears were missing kernels here and there - not pretty, but still very sweet and yummy. I ate several raw, right off the stalk - and happy chickies got to peck at the resulting cob. The bright red stalks and leaves of this variety is beautiful - need to look up what type I planted so that I can order that type of seed again.
• Yellow squash was a great success in bed no. 3. The ones in the ground, however, were eaten the moment they sprung forth from the earth.
• My garden blessed me with any wild things in the garden this year. I saw my first and only humming bird while sitting quietly in the garden before work one summer day. Lizards lapped water from the herbs in bed no. 1 all through the summer. Pigeons nested in the chicken coop (although Old Biddy kept destroying their nests, so they did not raise a brood). Chipmunks and mice raided the garden from time to time, and red tailed hawks (or so I believe them to be), soared overhead. Rabbits, luckily, are well-fenced out!

Well, I am sure there is more, but if I am ever to get this posted, I shall have to stop for the moment.

Chickies and Hungry Jack (the rooster) enjoying sunflower stalks for a late afternoon snack.

August Harvest and General Notes

Harvest

August is one of my favorite months in my High Desert Garden. The mornings are staying cooler all the way up to 9 am as the 60*F by 6 am, 70*F by 7 am, 80*F by 8 am and 90* by 9 am pattern breaks up. During August, the temps may still be below 80 by 10 am. These cooler temps spur the garden veggies into accelerated growth and production - bringing the first of the autumn harvests.

Sunflowers have been blooming for nearly a month, but their seeds are not yet ripened. So, for the fall harvest, yellow crook neck summer squash is the first to produce something edible. Above is one of my plants with a co-joined twin squash. I've never had a squash like that before. Also, note, I think the ants are my primary pollinator here. Of course, I also hand pollinate when I have time - but I don't always have time to help Mother Nature out. Probably the ants are good for Mother Nature's purposes - she merely wishes to produce a goodly amount of seed for next year's plants. Me, I want enough to eat and feed chickies. That requires additional pollination here in the desert.

The last of the sunflower buds have committed to pointing East, so I know they will be blooming soon. Blooms staggered over two months - that is about the same as years past. I mix types and when birds eat seedlings, I plant another seed - so one never knows what type one will get.

I am convinced that if you grow it, they will come. And that includes birds, insects, lizards and spiders. Here, a grey black widow patrols one of the ripening sunflower seed heads.

Although I planted Mammoth sunflowers, none of the plants were taller than 3 feet this year. Looking around the roadsides, it seems that none of the wild or cultivated sunflowers attained much height this year. I can tell which are the Mammoth sunflowers, however, as their flowers were still more than eight inches in diameter.

General Notes
First Frost Dates from Years Past

• 2005-10-15 Light Frost
• 2006-10-26 Killing Frost
• 2007-10-18 Light Frost
• 2007-10-20 Killing Frost
• 2008 - not recorded
• 2009 - not recorded

Bed No. One

• Bearded Irises - starting to fade; tips are browning and some of the leaves are dying down. Although only the blue and white ones bloomed this year, it appears that all varieties actually survived and sent up leaves for the summer. Hopefully they will all bloom next year.
• Rosemary - Looking very healthy. It has doubled in size from last year (which is double in size from the year before). It was a 97 cent Walmart unknown cultivar of rosemary. It was not rated for negative 10 degree winters and I fully expect it to die each winter. But here it is, several years later, and it is taking over. Need to harvest the nice young leaves, coat in olive oil and freeze.
• Unknown Day Lilies - 3 out of 6 survive. One had one bloom before the temperatures became scorching. It was a burnt orange color, and while lovely, was certainly not the bright pink of the cultivar New Toy. Still, if it survives winter, I will be more than happy to keep it!
• Oregano - harvested a few zip lock bags full before the summer heat made the plants get leggy and slightly bitter. I cut it back until it was only 6 inches tall, so it is not as bushy as it could normally be by this time. Still, I am thinking there will be a flush of new growth as the weather cools, so I may get a small second harvest.
• Sweet Marjoram - is Oregano's wilder sister, generally having a milder flavor than oregano, and having a more open growth pattern. In the Spring, when growth is young, you can't easily tell them apart - but later in the season, you will see Sweet Marjoram becoming leggy, and growing tall spikes of small white flowers that arch over and sway gracefully in the breeze.
• Desert Mallow - bright orange and somewhat weedy looking, this one has come back year after year. Her blooms are pretty stinky, but the attract pollinators by the droves. And, though stinky, the bright orange blooms are lovely and prolific. I cut her back after she matured a set of seed pods, and she is blooming again, although a little less than the first bloom set. I have scattered her seed pods around, hoping I can get a few more to personalise in the garden.
• Lemon Balm - Does not like the heat of summer. The plant grows leggy and the edges of the leaves that are not shaded by the Oregano become small and burnt on the edges. Definitely need to harvest this one in the early Spring when it is sending out large, pretty leaves by the bunches. It self-sowed quite happily this year, so I doubt I will ever have to plant more, even though this is the second year the original two plants have come back.

Autumn is here

It's the beginning of August and although the daytime temperatures are still in the mid- to high- 90's (*F), the nights are dipping into the 50's and low 60's - signifying the beginning of autumn. 

Sunflowers are in full bloom - ones blooming at the beginning of July still holding their petals, but showing signs that the heads are now filling with seed.  4 or 5 buds are still tracking the sun across the sky, but most have now made a commitment to point east in preparation for unfolding their petals.  4 young seedlings, barely 3 inches tall, battle time and the elements - will they bloom before the end of the season?

Collards have germinated in bed number 3.  They are limping along in the heat, but they will grow through light frosts, so hopefully they will begin to flourish as the days cool.

Okra in the ground has been plucked, presumably by the birds.  Three survive in bed number three, however.  They are supposed to only take 60 days or less to harvest.  They are all still small - stunted, I am guessing, by the harsh desert sun and wind.  But if we are lucky, there are still 40 - 60 more frost free days and I may hope to at least see them bloom.

Three delicata squash on the original vine - and the vine is just now starting to take off, with leaf and flower buds soaking up the sun. 

The unknown squash in bed three has female buds that show them to be yellow crook neck.  They haven't been fertilized yet, so I can't say that we will get a harvest - but the ants are working hard, crawling all over them and spreading yellow-orange pollen all around.  Yellow squash planted in the ground barely survives.

I ordered garlic for this fall's planting.  This year's planting includes 2 lbs of German Red and 5 lbs of Siberian - both hard necks that enjoy a cold winter.  I also ordered 1 lb of the softneck, Inchelium Red.  That should yield close to 70 hardnecks and a similar number of softnecks - although the softnecks might not survive if we have as brutal a winter as last year.  Normally I order from The Garlic Store, but they indicate they will not be shipping until October. As it looks like winter will be arriving early this year, I ordered from a place that will ship in mid-August: 2 Sister's Garlic. They did not have the top sized Siberian, but the medium sized will have more cloves per pound, so it may be that my harvest is actually bigger that way.

Speaking of garlic, the composted chicken poo is just about ready to dig into the sand. It will sit a few weeks, and then it should be ready for planting out the garlic. I still haven't decided exactly where to plant, but I better figure it out soon.

Planted out crook neck squash seeds that got rained on - placed them among the corn. One has germinated so far. I also placed some in bed number two, but I haven't seen any there, yet.

Busy week in the garden. Wish I had more time to hang out there. Work and school have taken their toll on my free time.

Early June

I am happy to report that there were no posts for June 2010 because my husband is home from Afghanistan, I am enjoying having him back home, and I was out in the garden actually gardening! Goodness and blessings all around me!

Early June is the time of mouthwatering peas! None of them actually made it into the house this year. Granddaughter and I grazed them in the garden and fed the shells and vines to the chickens. At the end of the season, over the course of a week, the vines were cut and tossed into the chicken run for chickie entertainment and nutrition.

Early June also foreshadows the bounty of Deep Summer and Autumn. The sunflowers in bed two that looked lonely and far apart are a dark green and foot tall in Early June. The promise of giant, golden globes in a few more months.

I have successfully murdered 4 raspberry bushes to date. Young, Innocent things, bought as bare root plants ready to leap forth and take over the world. But alas, dogs, searing heat, and early neglect and other abuse led to all of their demise. But this year, it appears, that I may finally be successful. A Walmart plant, supposedly of "thornless black raspberry" parentage, thrives and began flowering in June. My keys to finally having some success? Plant early - before the searing heat of summer. Water daily this first year. Mulch heavily. Feed lightly.

Wishing for the Weather to Settle

Although the apple trees survived our extra brutal winter this year, only the two Fuji's bloomed with any vigor. The Gala had less than one dozen flowers. Since the Gala is the cross-pollinator for the Fuji's, and visa versa, there chances are pretty slim that we will have apples this year. Add to the fact that they bloomed during a cold, windy week at the beginning of May when the bees were still sleepy means the chances are really about none. Inspection of the trees confirm this. At least the three young trees seem to have survived the winter. The old tree of unknown parentage that my husband saved from the house-builder's bulldozer, however, does not look like it will survive this brutal spring season. I continue to water her as if she were going to live - but if not, then this summer she will become something else. I recently saw a book on wooden buttons. Maybe some of her branches will be reincarnated that way. And her gnarled trunk might warm our house as firewood. And, of course, I have my photos of her. But for now, I encourage her with water, food and words.

Still, as the matron apple tree appears to decline, there are young, fresh plants just beginning their journey. Seven sunflowers in Bed 2 are up and about with large leaves patiently waiting for the hot summer sun. 15 more are barely out of the ground on the west side of the garden - planted under chicken wire, and hidden by dried weeds to thwart the hungry birds. They are planted on the west side, because, invariably, a sunflower will face the morning sun when it prepares to set seed.

Other Garden Status

• Peas - over 30 of them, ranging from just sprouted to 4 inches tall
  
• Spinach - var. "Matador" - 39, some with their first set of true leaves
  
• "New Toy" Day Lilies - 3 sets, barely out of the ground and only a few inches high - hoping their bright pink blooms will add color to the garden all season long
  
• Rosemary - continues to bloom
  
• Lemon Balm - self seeded babies are launching their first true leaves
  
• Bearded Irises - Deep maroon tips peak out of lengthening scapes
  
• Garlic - waits for the summer heat to spur them to bulk up their bulbs
  
• Hens - Acquiring 8-12 eggs a day

Enjoying the blessings of the season - in spite of snow last week and the chance of freezing night temperatures still in the forecast.

Holiday in the High Desert

Labor Day Weekend is the "Last Hoorah" travel weekend for a lot of people. As a result, I try to stay as far away from roads as possible. In fact, it's usually my favorite holiday to spend at home. By the end of August we are usually having a few days that are under 90*F, and with luck, one or two of them will land on the holiday weekend. Indeed, we are in luck this year, as today it is supposed to be under 80*F, even!

The "rescue" apple tree and my miniature corn field in the NE corner of the garden. The tarp is strung on the fence between the garden and the chicken run to provide shade and a wind block.

So I slept in until 5:30 a.m. this morning, and then met the sunrise with a small stampeed of chickens. The air was crisp and breezy, but not cold and windy, so everyone was hungry and energetic. This young "Easter Egger" doesn't yet have her poofy cheeck feathers, and is maturing quite a bit slower than her flock mates. I suppose in a different flock, she would have been culled long before now, but in a small, home flock like ours, we can afford to keep on a slow grower.
You can see the poofy cheeck feathers on the two "Easter Eggers" here. They are attacking some dried sunflower heads from last year's harvest.
As you can see, the sunflowers were a big hit with the chickies. I hung out in the coop filling water bottles and mixing up more food and such while they squawbled over both the seeds and the right to attack the dried sunflower head.
Another big hit with the chickies are the steps to the coop. Both fun for hopping on and beeing taller than the other chickies, and a great place to chill out under.
As cute as the chickies are, however, their sweetness is just an illusion. Here is some of the destruction that they caused in the corn patch.
And, while Life is determined to go forth in spite of the Desert, the Chickens and Me, only a few corn stalks produced ears. And those that did produced small ears... and most of those were sampled by Chickens.

So now, I think, it must be - Nap Time!

I could almost pretend it's a farm

Apple trees and corn and the happy chirping of young pullets - one could almost say we are farming. Of course, real farmers would probably laugh at me (hopefully a kind chuckle with warm eyes). Here is my short, "77 day" corn - it's beginning to bloom, but at the rate the chickies are picking at them, they may not survive long enough to ripen any actual corn. Still, the entertainment value of watching the chickens hide in them plus the entertainment value to the chickens themselves, has already made the 5 ft x 6 ft plot of 4 ft high corn well worth it. Epsecially considering that it only cost me $2 in seed and 5 minutes a day to deep water.
The "Princess" chicken, hiding in the corn. She's somewhat out of focus because she's one who doesn't stay still very much. The other day, she rode into the house on my head. I now have a goodly scratch on my scalp from her claws.
A Silver Laced Wyandotte girl sitting on a bag of store bought compost. Hopefully, this will be the last year I'll be buying compost - the girls are making quite a bit of the good stuff for me now. In fact, I turned the compost the other day, and the stuff on the bottom is getting brown and almost dirt-looking. Looking forward to combining it into the sand where next year's beds will be.

This is "Kick-start," our little lame Ameracauna, digging around in the compost pile. I had taken the black plastic cover off of it to water and turn the pile and she jumped in and went bug-hunting.

I'm getting better at catching the chickens in flight. Or, at least, sort of in flight.

Sunflowers were a great success this year. Nearly all that I planted germinated and are now in various stages from budding to being nearly ready to harvest. The ones planted when the day temperatures were in the 40's seem to have grown the best, but all suffered because they were planted, essentially, in sand. The one that was planted in good dirt was much healthier and grew a bigger flower head than all the others, of course.

Garden photos (what, no chicky pictures today?)

A garlic "blossom" - really, they are little, tiny bulbs, but it looks like a flower. I'm glad I let one mature it's scapes. Very pretty. The big bulbs of this one are also purple hued.

The first tomato! Still smaller than my pinky fingernail, but a tomato it is! Only the cherry toms will set fruit when the temps hang out over 90*F.

It isn't a very clear photo, but I caught a bee filling up with pollen at one of the sunflowers along the northern border of the garden.

Here's a close-up from the photo - you can see she is not in focus, but I like the photo anyway.
Same bee, but got her walking on the sunflower this time. Look at her hind leg, stuffed with pollen. (Looks like a large, yellow blob slightly above the wing on the left (her right).)
Something laid her eggs on this tomato plant a few days ago. Yesterday they were a jade green color, but it was too windy to take photos. Today they look clear. Could their inhabitants have hatched? They are about the size of a "seed bead."
Corn is growing like a weed. It got a light dose of fresh chicken bedding, and seems to be thriving from it. Too much fresh chicky-poo tends to burn the roots of plants, but I think the corn likes it. The corn is about 18 inches tall in this photo. I still can't believe we may have corn in another month. It is growing several inches a day, however, so I'm beginning to believe...
Eight Ball zucchini baby in bed 3. Got 100 percent germination out of the seed, but the heat conspired to kill several, so now I only have 3 plants - which, since they are zukes, could be a blessing!
Genovese basil front and center, and a little Lettuce Leaf basil to the right. Smells delightful when watering the garden by moonlight.
Dark Opal basil - yes, I know I'm not supposed to let it bloom, but it's just so pretty, that each year I end up letting it go. As a result, of course, the plants aren't as bushy - sending it's energy into flower production instead of producing leaves.
Rosemary, smells so divine. I have yet to find a trailing kind like they have at the Corporate Offices where I often travel to for work. And, I've never been successful getting one to live through the winter - but it's still worth the few dollars I spend to buy a new one each year.

Beans did not survive the heat and the drying winds.

Transplanted bearded irises starting to put on some real growth. Maybe they really will bloom next year.
Ok, couldn't help myself. This is the chicky that my granddaughter has decreed is "The Princes Chicken." We have no idea what type she might be. She isn't anything we ordered - but she's cute and has attitude, so we like her. I wonder if she will lay white eggs?