Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Little things

It really is the little things in life that make every day worthwhile. This summer I’ve taken great pleasure in perusing the garden in the evening and it seems every visit there is something new to see.

Just last week the raspberries and blackberries started to fruit, turning from light green globules to pink to purple.

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The wee Serrano plant is practically raining peppers. Every time we inspect the plant there are more little green nubs forming a new spicy package.

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The watermelon plants that had until recently been modest little guys have recently exploded in every direction and flowered. I find the tendrils of these plants fascinating as they form perfect curlicues and grab everything within their reach.

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And the tomato plants! All five of our plants are growing nearly out of control. The most picturesque are the chocolate stripe tomatoes with their light and dark green markings that will soon turn red and brown.

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Our cherry tomato plants have been slowly producing little reddish fruits. This is the most recent harvest (that avoided Seth’s mouth):

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Not a recent discovery, but we have been seeing more and more aphids on the tomatoes and brussel sprouts.

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Seth did a little spraying of soapy water on the plants but we finally brought in the biological weapon – the ladybugs! We bought a little sack of about 1,500 squirmy ladybugs and set them free in the late evening. Some of them immediately found little puddles in leaves and nearly drowned themselves, others roamed around seemingly aimlessly, others got right to coupling, and a few did locate and start a little insect dinner. In the next few days their numbers dwindled and we seem to only have a small group that remained. Oh well.

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While pulling off some flower buds from our sage plant I came across the cutest little praying mantises! As you can see in the photos below they are quite small and adorable.

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Anyways, the backyard is proving to be a pleasant surprise every evening. Who knows what will happen next!

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