the little wild kingdom

[flowerbug]

we don't have a drought at the present time but we went about three weeks without much rain before we got a few cm recently. there is rain forecast for most of the next four days so we'll see how that goes. i have pea sprouts up and perhaps some beans will appear soon.

[flowerbug]

a tree froggy came to visit the last time we had a decent rain overnight when I was staying up late reading - they like to get the bugs off the windows.




it is past season for the crocuses but i did get a few pictures of them that i liked.




in this one you can see the rabbits or deer chewed on the plant and just nipped the top of the flower.



the past few years i've not been able to get a decent lilac picture and this year it almost happened again, but i'd gone out a week before all the blooms were open and tried to get one that worked. i went back out a week later and all the blooms were spotted or damaged.



i have gotten most of the starts planted for onions, tomatoes, and peppers. the peas, beans and onions that were already planted are doing well. squash planting is next for tomorrow morning. after that it is all bean planting in any empty spaces and a few melon plants.

[flowerbug]

gardens planted and doing mostly ok. one garden i planted outside the fences ended up being heavily grazed the past few nights so not much left in there of the many bean sprouts that were just coming up. not sure if i will replant or not.

projects will keep me busy for a few weeks and the usual weeding and watering.

[xdrix]

Seedling of bean amethyst: he is purple.
I have sucessed my borlotti beans this year!

[flowerbug]

the primary bean gardens inside the fence are doing ok, but the large North Garden beans are mostly gone. four nights in a row deer came in and ate almost every bean sprout. i'm not sure how many will survive, but i will keep them weeded and watered, i'm just not going to spend more time replanting since they might get eaten again. i have another large garden outside the fence which i hope they will ignore but again i don't know if they will. it is always a risk when i plant outside the fences what the deer and other animals will do. normally i get an ok return for my efforts. this year, however, is making me rethink what i will do for next year. until i can put up the fences i need to protect the gardens i don't want to waste so much time and effort again. we'll see what happens...

in other news, working on projects and keeping busy. a few recent pictures follow...

[flowerbug]

this toad picked a spot under some fabric that was drying that had fallen on the ground. even hours later when i went back out it was still there with the fabric removed. finally it did move on to some other location.




a pair of birds picked an old pot bellied stove as a place to nest this year. i didn't know what kind of bird they were at first and it took me some time to get a close enough look at them.

[flowerbug]

the recent nice rain did help knock us back from being in a more serious drought, but it is going to be hot this week so we can use whatever else may come along from any rains.


this brown praying mantis is almost perfectly blended in with the brown background of the eaves.




the tomato patch is doing ok.




first bean harvest of dry seeds from indoor plants. this was just a test to see if i could really get these particular bean plants to do better in cooler and more controlled environment because they sure did not like being grown outside. increased my seeds from 4 to 22. a nice improvement over previous results but i'm not sure i will keep going with these or not - i don't really have the space indoors and hardly any sunny windows where they would do well enough.




the north bean garden where the deer have been grazing it quite often, so not too many bean plants are left. it needs a fence around it.



the northeast bean garden that could also use a fence around it, the north garden (above) was planted before the northeast garden. notice how nice the Purple Dove beans in the foreground are doing much better than most of the rest of the plants. also as you go further back the deer have grazed it more.



inside the fenced gardens the bean patches are doing much better, but also they were planted earlier and have had more time to grow. there are plenty of beans flowering now.



these two bean gardens were planted first and are doing well with plenty of plants flowering.

[xdrix]

I was tryed to grow bean under a growlight a winter.It was a red light with a spectrum of 2700 kelvin and 12hours per day.
They was strenght but they had give 1 pod .It was not a good yield.

Photos of botlotti and amethyst beans

[flowerbug]

beans from a cross i'm hoping is stable now (looks like it is) - these were harvested from the same plant about 4 days apart.



finished weeding the North Garden and then transplanted some more ground covers to get some more erosion control layers going. it looks a lot better with green on there instead of bare dirt (plus it's a lot fewer weeds). if you look closely in the left and some of the ridges and slopes you might be able to see the transplants that were watered in and getting ready to take over their new corner of the world. i still have a few layers to go, but it's getting there... the lack of bean plants in the central area back there is due to deer eating most of them.



from another angle that i don't usually take a picture standing in that spot. showing some of the other decorations around that area (and the front birdbath).



the Red Lucifer out front also has been grazed pretty heavily but they didn't get all the flowers. too bad the hummingbirds won't fly at night and defend their flowers... perhaps i need to get them some night goggles?



i thought of Mom when taking this one as i know they like those close up and personal kinds of flower pictures.

tomato worms were plentiful this year, i picked over 50 of them off the 16 tomato plants. this morning i picked enough for 21 quarts and finished that off a bit ago, Mom helped and we had fun.

raining plenty now and it tested out some of my erosion control layers and water works. it is always fun if i can get out and see what is happening during the few hard rains we have. the River Nile is running and that's not happened much this year at all so some work i'd started on for that might get washed out again. i'll have to check it all again tomorrow and fix a few things.

[xdrix]

I will try to harvested the beans but they have some difficultys to get fat with our drought.Its not the worms who attacks the tomatos for us but the plants bugs.

[flowerbug]

Aug 23, 2022 16:56:01 GMT -5 xdrix said:

I will try to harvested the beans but they have some difficultys to get fat with our drought.Its not the worms who attacks the tomatos for us but the plants bugs.

yes, i often have issues with certain larger beans due to soil/weather problems.  that is why i try to cross breed and select smaller sized beans that will have a more likely chance of finishing.  the above half white bean is a nice size and shape so i'm happy that it showed up.  i just picked a bunch more from multiple plants so it appears to be stable enough to give it a name.

we don't have too many other bugs which attack the tomatoes here, but we do have diseases which cause leaves to die off.  it is alway a race between that and the frosts.  still we get a good harvest so i don't mind or fight it because 20-40 lbs of fruit per plant is good enough.

[xdrix]

A small advantage with our drought is that we don't have see the blight this year on our tomatos in full air.They was less sick in full air that under shelter.We have had powdery mildew under the shelter.I have try the tomatillo ( physalis ixocarpa) unfortunately just 1 plant has germinate and it required at least two plants for have a fecondation.
i have forgotten to make my firsts beans croces this years.
I have put my priority on my tomatos and squashs croces.
Do you think i can do a cross between a amethyst bean and a cow peas dall'occhio?

[flowerbug]

Aug 24, 2022 14:39:57 GMT -5 xdrix said:

...
Do you think i can do a cross between a amethyst bean and a cow peas dall'occhio?

i have no experience with that kind of cross.  from what i can tell it may be better to try finding someone else's already accomplished cross and to work with that instead (if you can find one at all).  i have no experience with that either. 

[flowerbug]

yesterday was a big harvest of tomatoes and getting them canned.

many were not round shaped but instead looked more like brains with a lot of textures/inclusions, which take a lot of work to process.

i think the shape is from how tomatoes pollinate themselves and when it is hot outside that doesn't go as well as it does at other times.

the same plants with cooler weather provided the more round and more normal fruits.

[flowerbug]

tomato canning season is finished up and have been giving away whatever people will take that is left as it ripens. a very good tomato season here with almost 50 lbs of fruits per plant (and more to go yet) - which is well above our normal range of 20 - 40 lbs.