Fall colors

Here’s some random colors from pink to red. Most are the usual suspects for autumn, from pink snapdragons to orange euonymous fruits to red Alpine strawberries back after the heat for an encore. And every year my warm spot for tomatoes shelters them way longer than you might expect. Yes, we have tomatoes!

Squirlfeeder

A little-known variety of the North American trickster animal is the Squirlfeeder. Somewhat like the Japanese tanuki, this small furry animal resembles a squirrel in its natural shape, but when threatened can transform itself into other objects to fool humans. The backyard variety favors the bird feeder, for obvious reasons. Here you see an incomplete […]

Three things that make me glad today

1. Fall raspberries are extra sweet and delicious. 2. So are fall Alpine strawberries. 3. Skunk odor remover works.

Fall Cosmos

The cosmos patch is looking lovely lately. On these sunny days, under the clear sky and a low sun, the light seems to lie on the flowers like water in a saucer about to overfill. It’s a small patch, as only a couple of the plants survived, let alone thrived. But all this […]

Why does a pear appear?

You foolish, foolish pear tree. Not only did you flower again, you set fruit. What were you thinking?

A tomato in hiding

Once the weather turns cool, every tomato that ripens on the plant is like gold. Hidden gold, tucked away inside the thicket of dying leaves. And it’s still flowering, not caring that nights warm enough to set fruit are not coming back. Unlike squash, tomatoes do not believe in deadlines.

Golden leaves are falling

The scrape, scrape of raking is ratting down the street. The first leaves are turning, mostly brown so far, but here’s a nice yellow leaf caught in the obliging branches of a bare azalea. And the leaf bag count is two and rising.

Golden squash to be

I thought planting a bush variety of squash would be better than getting overwhelmed with squash, but the two little squashlettes it has produced so far is less than underwhelming. Now, all of a sudden, there’s at least four of five of them hiding under the leaves. Do you think it knows there’s a deadline […]

Goldenrod for a lazy bee

We went out for dim sum today, and I feel as lazy as a bee hanging on the goldenrod with a faceful of flower. This is a Carpenter bee, and you know it’s a male because of the light spot on his face. He was so sleepy, I could move the goldenrod to an easier […]

Collards in the rain

I love the way the rain beads on leaves, and I love my collards. There’s three little plants establishing themselves and one big one. Like so many weeds, the volunteer plants form a rosette, but tasty ones. Between them, I’ve cut two batches of greens already. Since they’re so young, it doesn’t take nearly […]