End of July

I'm eating these cushaw squash as fast as I pick them.

I think they taste like taters, but they require very little cooking!

Pretty important in this heat.

If I cube some pre-cooked rotisserie chicken, and cube some of the cushaw squash, add in a can of corn, a slice of onion and a bit of hot pepper, I can have a nice soup in the time it takes to cook up a pot of ramen noodles.

I'm eating these beige punkins too, but they aren't as good as the cushaw.

The cherry laurel that I moved last winter are being browsed by the deer.

Prolly need to try agin with tomato cages.

Armadillo number 17 so far this year!

Aralia spinosa with pollinators.

Round pears. I've been eating for a couple weeks, very sweet.

Snake-cotton (Froelichia floridana) next to the drive, absolutely spectacular this year!

 

Dog Days in the Garden

 Cardinal... gonna pick her own corn?

Naw, she's hunting caterpillars!

 These hummingbirds are so sweet....

So cute!

 A monarch! I'm seeing them a number of times this summer...

If the monarchs would only find the milkweed... being enjoyed by the black form tiger swallowtail.

 Picked a 23 pound watermelon this morning for breakfast...

These watermelon are supposed to be new world melons...

In the early 1920s, Art Combe, a Southwestern plant expert and amateur prospector found a small woven pot filled with bright red watermelon seeds in an abandoned sandstone cave in Arizona’s Mogollon Rim. The red seeds are believed to be hundreds, if not thousands, of years old!

https://www.rareseeds.com/blog/post/art-combes-amazing-ancient-watermelon

I keep trying to find stuff that will tolerate the conditions out here... There is a bit of difference between drought tolerant and... humidity and drought tolerant...

 Row of bean tepees, and a row of green striped cushaw.

4 squash!

I had a chicken problem... I was finding feathers on the ground, and seeing fewer birds... I think this raccoon was responsible...