Foraging and farming

If you came to visit my town now, one of the places I'd take you is my open secret -- the berry picking park. Some of the brambles are best up at the top, and those have a nice view of folks going round and round and round at the golf course. Sometimes I wonder if they're going to look over and wonder why there's a woman leaning way over the berry patch, but so far they haven't.
The other day a friend of mine came and we picked along the lower section where a ladder isn't quite a necessity.


Maybe the golf course is arranged so that fewer balls come over this side?


Tor has been a pretty good sport about coming along -- he picks some, eats some, flies his kite, and just hangs out.


Closer to home, Fred the cat got out after I pulled some of the honey frames off of the hives today. We had to leave for piano lessons before he could be caught, but he ended up in a comfy bed of catnip. He was also stoned enough to be easy to capture!


An attack of intelligence (or at least efficiency) prompted me to mix up an entire bucket of baking soda/soap water for battling my new official scourge, powdery mildew.


I'd already pulled the yellow crookneck that had succumbed, but not before it spread to the butternut squash. What really got me off my rear end and into active battle mode was finding it on the cantaloupe-type melons yesterday.


They look worlds better today and I have some hope for allowing at least some of the butternuts to get ripe.


Some are past saving, though.


I'm pulling leaves and trimming what I can as fast as I can. Thank goodness that being a gardener means there is always a new season coming. I dreamt of a back garden that was nothing but kale this morning. I guess that's one approach to crop rotation!

I can't even think of a witty title. It's hot here -- not hotter than other people have, I'm sure -- but it's hot for us. And when you live in an area with generally very mild temperatures and not a whole lot of variation, a big change isn't something one is prepared for.

I'm happy, for example, that we sprang for a whole house fan. It's still cool enough in the evening that we can manage to sleep. Very very few people here have air conditioning, and even then it's usually a window unit. Houses built in 1880 didn't have central heat and air as options, usually!

Add excessively sandy soil and no automated irrigation, and you've got a stressed garden and a stressed gardener. I'm worried that some of my bush beans won't bounce back.


They got extra water this evening, and I'll visit them again in the morning, but really crispy leaves cannot be a good sign.

Some of the squash blossoms are being blasted by heat early enough that they're not opening. I hope I'm not only going to get the ones that are already pollinated. Surely this heat snap will have an end?


Poor little blighted baby.

Even the potatoes, which are in mostly imported and therefore not very sandy soil, were not fully happy. I expect them to bounce back but I'm worried about that one in the front there.


Enough moaning from me about heat. I have some questions and some cuteness.

Ideas about what kind of insect eggs these might be? Horizontal groupings? You can click to make the picture bigger. There have been some leaf miners in the leaves, but I don't think this is them. Ideas?


The little piquin peppers are about the size of my little fingernail. So very very cute. I have no intention of eating them -- too hot, I'm sure -- but someone has to want to. And they're so cute!


Guesses as to what kind of squash this is? I know I wrote down the kinds, but I'm kind of stumped, and the field tagging was, erm, lacking this season.


Finally, the chicks are getting bigger. Still not quite big enough to mix it up with the older hens, but they're getting there.


Hope everyone else is nice and cool.