I picked this year’s first tomato today!

I could have waited for the next two to get ripe, but I wanted to pick a tomato. It’s a nice, unblemished red weighing a hefty 7.5 ounces. A good start to tomato season.

The world’s smallest corn patch

Two unusually tall grass plants have unveiled two flowering stalks. There’s even a couple of skinny ears forming at the bottoms. It’s corn! No way will anything come of this, but let’s see how far they get. Thank you squirrels for leaving two kernels of corn uneaten.

Mystery plants are everywhere!

This is what happens when you spread compost under the plum tree. More mystery plants.

All this rain better make my fruit trees ripen!

The garden is filled with fruit that just ain’t ripe.

When the goldfinches show up, you know you’re dong something right

It’s so amazing when these bright bits of canary yellow come swooping into the yard. That’s how you know that the coneflower seeds are ripe. Sunflower seeds are good, too, but only straight from the flowerhead. Goldfinches are so exacting about what they eat, but when they find something they like, they seem to really […]

What’s behind those leaves?

Bees! When you look at this wall of grape leaves imagine you hear buzzing.

Is this is a sunflower or another mystery plant?

A couple weeks ago I plucked a couple of large sprouts from the compost (yes, more sprouts in the compost) and planted them in proper soil. Much to my surprise, my diligent watering and mulching is actually leading them to prosper. But what are they?

The usual suspects are in the goldenrod

August started early in the goldenrod. They’ve been flowering for a couple weeks and bees love it. I’ll try to catch more pics of the little bees later. For now, here’s a bumblebee, a honeybee, and a mystery wasp.

I don’t care that squirrels hog the bird food, they’re cute

The summer mob of young birds is emptying the bird feeder within a few hours every day. Most of them are sparrows, fighting with each other, and begging from their parents. There’s a couple of young cardinals, all gawky and splotchy with their adult reds not quite filled in. And there’s at least one young […]

You’ll never see these daylilies again

It’s high summer and the daylilies are flowering. There’s orange ones and yellow ones but mostly these red-throated curly orange ones. Since each flower drops off at the end of the day, you’ll never see these two again. You might see their like, though.