Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, June 10

Hi, everybody! Anything going on in the garden or in the outdoors?

We've heard from Tom Servo, who sent in the lovely photo of the Luna Moth above. A Moon insect in June, sort of:

Here's one that was the highlight of my weekend - found this just out of a chrysalis in my front yard! My grandson noticed that if you zoom up on it, it's wings look more like a painting than like an actual living creature. Also it's the only moth or butterfly I know of that's shaped like a B-2 bomber.

God decided to have fun with design that day!

Plus a great idea that turned out well:

I had a very visible bed in front of my house where all the foundation plantings froze, and I didn't want to make some big plan . So I chose to just fill it with gladiolus bulbs and a few other things - you can see a nice big bunch of Dahlias in the lower right of this photo. Easy to do, and it has come out looking better than I thought it could!

Striking!

Edible Gardening/Putting Things By

Farm report:

Got our first good cantaloupe this week. Served it with a scoop of Tillamook Peaches and Cream Ice Cream. Once a year.

California cherries and strawberries have been a little late because of all the rain, and cherries have had more doubling than usual. But they have been good. Some orchards probably go flooded out.

Do you do anything with sweet cherries besides eating them straight?

Joy is a handful of juicy gems from the San Joaquin Valley! (H/t @AgWriterVLBoyd for the family fun day idea!) pic.twitter.com/x8q6AAH5xh

— Mike Hsu (@UCANRMike) May 28, 2023

Fresno State Sweet Corn returns to market. Have you got local corn yet? Do you grill it?

News about the Kern River and the California Aqueduct

Southern California will benefit from all that mountain snowpack coursing into the Kern River, in the form of more drinking water. Story from ⁦@ByIanJames⁩: https://t.co/6lCFGaEQVr

— Sammy Roth (@Sammy_Roth) May 20, 2023

Kern River, Merle Haggard

Tuesday was World Pest Day.

#WorldPestDay. Aphids (yellow) are pests of milkweed, feeding here in our habitat area, while ladybugs are at work devouring them. pic.twitter.com/yCaxKOCvsN

— Westside Farmer 🦅 (@JoeDelBosque) June 6, 2023

Here's a big farm machine to help control pests and weeds. I don't think this one is available for home gardeners.

We look forward to putting Vulcan in customers’ hands later this year. We’ve been putting our Vulcan intra-row cultivator and its sub-system components through a wide series of intense #fieldtests and are over the moon with the performance we've monitored.#innovation #agtech pic.twitter.com/NTHicE7IOS

— FarmWise (@FarmWiseLabs) May 26, 2023

Adventure

Above, a photo from Brookgreen Gardens a little earlier this year. The mom who took the photo will be moving away from South Carolina soon, and will miss the Botanical Gardens.

Gardens of The Horde

I've been worried that the El Nino means a dry summer for the Mid-Atlantic, and so far it's worse than I expected. Not a drop of rain for me in June so far, but my roses had a very nice first bloom in May. They'll need a lot of water to keep going this summer, so I have my hoses out for weekly waterings. My now-crispy lawn is on its own, though.

Carefree Beauty started it off in early May, followed by Macy's Pride,
then Orange Impressionist, Centennial, Salmon Impressionist and finally
First Crush. The roses have all recovered from being dug up and moved
around my yard 3 years ago.

badgerwx

Great news about the roses. They look great!

First Crush bloomed Last? Love them.

Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

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Week in Review

What has changed since last week's thread? Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, June 3

Any thoughts or questions?

I closed the comments on this post so you wouldn't get banned for commenting on a week-old post, but don't try it anyway.

posted by K.T. at 01:26 PM

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