gardening

you can see the actual corn now. It's considered a really healthy corn stalk if it produces 3 corns. Most of mine have 2 with a few stalks having an additional side stalk.

pollen is carried by wind, that's why you plant corn close together.

These are Everbearing strawberries, they produce a smaller berry than the Juneberry. But, what they lack in size they make up in production. These plants have been producing since February. They took a month off April, and have started back up in May. The Juneberry only produces in June, hence the name. Next year I plan on having both varietes.

I thought these tomato vines died during last winter. I was going to rip them out but decided to give them some time and see what they were going to do. Pruned, water, just tied up about a month ago. Manure fertlizer works!

FLowers

Golden Honey Melon, melons love the crap sand I have for soil.

Blue Corn, never had but hear it's good.

Pollen?

gardening

corn silk

Found these bugs on corn today. Small knat sized bugs. Hose off and will hope for the best.

One raspberry

This looks great, I'm going to put a bag on my peaches so the birds don't peck them.

The flowers on my watermelon plant are beautiful. I love seeing it grow each day.

Perpective from an ant, reminds me of the movie, "Honey, I shrunk the kids."

The flowers then turn into baby Sugar Babies. Sugar Babies are supposed to produce a lot in a smaller plot than traditional watermelons. We'll see!

This guy is a round squash. Since I have different breeds of squash they will all pollinate each other. The result will be regular squash but the seeds will a cross breed. With my winter squash I'll tape and hand pollinate to prevent cross breeding.

gardening

Can't wait to eat, I never had the flowers but heard they taste good.

Soy beans and a green bean mixed in with the corn. Soy beans are a great companion for corn since they release nitrogen, which fertilize the corn. They also provide shade to keep the weeds out.

cucumber that I just transplanted from a pot. I just use cut up milk jugs to start my seeds and move into the ground when they get this big. Anything with a thicker stem can handle the move pretty easy however, the tomatoes and eggplant died since they have a really thin stem around this age.

I blocked this guy off but he still gets to my garden from time to time. Rambo knife comes in handy. LOL

Why am I showing you this? Well first off, it's a grape vine. I cut off around a 16" piece back in late March. Mixed some compost into the soil and stuffed it into the ground. This little guy had a leaf on it but the leaf fell off after a few days. I kept watering it and was about to give up on it since it's now May. I now should have some grapes, in about 3 years!!!

onions, now I can spread them out so they have room to grow.

Sugar baby watermelon started in a container on full moon back in February. Now starting to run!

Started in February, runts compared to my other one already producing.

Dwarft Red Delicious apples, said not to grow in southern ca because it doesn't get cold enough. Well I already had one apple a few months ago. We'll see how these turn out. These apples are nasty in the market, mushy with no taste. They do not store well compared to other varieties. All I have to say is these are wonderful fresh. Crisp with a delicious taste, hence the name. My baby is going to love fresh apple sauce! Peach off in the right. My dog loves fruit and caught him taking some off. He knows better but too tempting.

Planted corn seeds on the first full moon in February. Soaked seeds for one day, then planted into the ground. I'm going to try to plant some in a month or two to try and have some fresh corn for Thanksgiving.

Zucchini squash is a summer variety. After about 8" long they start to loose flavor. This guy is fat, I plan on having him tonight, fried up cajan stlye. Hint to wifey, please make tonight.

Winter squash, started from seed April 4th. I have a row of spaghetti and butternut squash. Plant a few seeds a couple of inches away, some will sprout and others will not. When plants get about this big just move to the proper spacing of 18"-24". Not shown is beets, two cucumbers, a row of butterleaf lettuce, and chards.

Up to Speed

Well, we are engaged now! It's a bird! It's a plane! No... it's an engagement! (ha ha...)

It all went down in Yosemite (we are fans, indeed). So and Marky came with- which really kept me from thinking he'd propose on the trip (good work, love).





We had a very close encounter with a bear because we arrived really late to the two pines camp ground and over looked a potato and deodorant that ended up astray under a plastic food tray (come to think, it may have carried a scent too!). In a rush- the bear jumped into the truck bed- was driven off by So- on its way out he brushed her tent! Very exciting camping experience...

The next day there was moodiness, sleepiness, and other nonsense going on with me (really I couldn't have thrown any more at Johnny). I suppose I'm pretty lucky he still proposed, but it isn't luck at all- it's some kinda of love (the best kind).

What's next? We'd like a house, definitely a wedding, probably a couple of dogs and maybe a pony for Wolfy boy to play with.

Cheers!

Lazy sunbather.

My brother spotted a lizard sunbathing in the backyard. I heard him talking to it, and was really just kind of concerned about his mental state (I absolutely love him). He invests much of his time in front of the television watching the Discovery channel. Also, that Penguins of Madagascar cartoon, but I digress. Anyway, he was convinced it was some sort of poisonous desert lizard because of the extremely bright blue and teal coloring all over his(her?) chubby little body. I sort of bought into it when I went down to see what all the fuss was about.

As all wild things are, it is quite dirty.

All he wanted was to sunbathe.

I called Kevin, the resident lizard expert, and my good friend. He looked at a few pictures and agreed to come by to pick him up, assuring us he was not dangerous, just "really cool looking."

Although it turned out to just be an exceptionally attractive blue belly, and not a poisonous beast, I am quite pleased it gave the lovely Cantrell couple a reason to stop by and spend some time with me.

Addendum/Post Script: The blue bellied sunbather freaked out during the earth quake last night. I kind of did too, my whole bed shook.

Swoon.

I loved that song you made up.

Without shoes.