Category: Berries and Fruits
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Pear tree blooming, watermelon on the vines, the Audubon Aquarium, and family pictures from New Orleans, BR, Tennessee, DC, and Wisconsin.
The pear tree has blossoms. The pear tree looks healthy for now and hopefully it will continue to thrive. The watermelon plants that are located outside of the goat yard have many different size melons. If the deer do not descend upon the vines, we may just harvest a watermelon in a few weeks. The…
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Preparing the fields, pumpkins, beans, watermelon, deer, bear, turkeys, coyote, camping, turtles, family pictures.
It is time to disc the fields for planting. The fields are disced to break up the plants and solid ground. When there is a forecast of rain, we will till, then spread seeds. The seed mix that we choose contains a mixture of plants that will grow at different time of the year to…
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Beautiful Weeds, Visitors (wanted and unwanted), Deer, Turkey, Family Pictures!
The white flowers below are known as Late boneset, a species of Bonesets (Eupatorium). Other names are Lateflowering thoroughwort, Fall Boneset, and Late eupatorium. This plant is classified as a weed. The plant type is HERB (although I am yet to find a use for it, other than it may help our bees since it…
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Bush String Beans, Cantaloupe, Raccoons, and a HAY Slide!
We got to harvest some of our Bush String Beans yesterday. The bushes started producing beans when they were only a foot tall. These string beans were cooked for dinner and were delicious. (The picture below is only a fraction of the harvest, so everyone did get to eat string beans last night.) BELOW: This…
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Turkeys, Deer, Bear, Science Tip and Museum:
These beautiful Turkeys are starting to show up quite regularly on the trail cameras. Trail Cameras from this week: Not much on the cameras, but we are seeing some healthy deer and healthy turkeys. Below: In the last 20 years, the black bear population has expanded eastward from the Mississippi River. There are two subspecies…
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Dahlia, Hummingbirds, and Melons
The Dahlias have started blooming again now that the cooler weather is here. By cooler weather, we mean high 80’s and low 90’s during the day. Bruce took some slow motion and real-time videos of the hummingbirds at the farm. The hummingbirds are going through 32 cups of nectar a day- that is 8 cups…
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Mushrooms, Moths, Butterflies, Watermelon, Zinnias, and Bats
Scientific Tip: Just because it grows in your garden, doesn’t mean it is eatable! Below is a mushroom that was growing under the blackberries in the garden. The mushrooms below are in the family of Argaricaceae (gilled mushrooms). This family has many edible and deadly poisonous mushrooms. NEVER eat or touch a wild mushroom unless…
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Bee Feeders, Cantaloupe, Honeydew, Jerusalem Artichokes, and Volunteering
The bees have found the bee feeder. (This bee feeder has 1 C sugar to 2C water). We moved this bee feeder away from the back porch and that has definitely helped on “bee traffic”. The Tea Tree Oil remedy on the Hummingbird feeders is definitely dose and time related. After a few hours, the…
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What is a proboscis in insects? Zinnias, Water leak, goats, and family pictures.
Science Tip: Proboscis: Think of a straw! In certain insects, a proboscis is a mouthpart that is tubular and flexible used for feeding and sucking. Moths, butterflies, and mosquitoes all have proboscis. In the picture below, the butterfly’s proboscis is bent at a right angle just below its antennae. Look at the video below. The…
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Bees, Problem plants, Zinnias, and Pumpkins
The bees and wasp have made it very uncomfortable to sit on the porch. We had bee feeders, but the there are so many bees and wasp that it is impossible to stay out of their way. We ordered more bee feeders and have decided to move these to the fence. Hopefully, the bees will…