Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, April 13

Happy Saturday! Still having variable weather here. How about where you are?

Well, we have another very talented gardening lurker in The Horde. Love that beautiful photo above. Would like to visit!

Enjoying my front yard this spring in Washington. Always enjoy the "Gardening, Puttering and Adventure thread". Prefer to remain a long time lurker

Edible Gardening/Putting Things By

By-Tor:

Lemon marmalade. It's fairly easy. It tastes like limoncello, or maybe lemonade.

Should be nice on toast or with crackers and cream cheese on a charcuterie board.
I got seven half pints from about 13 lemons.

I see strawberry jam in my future.

They look great. It's the season . .

Anybody growing their own? How do you pick a variety?

Also By-Tor:

Container garden is coming along, and hope with warmer weather will take off.

The tomato is coming right along. More plants there than I remember from the last update.

Hiyya KT,

The first picture is of my Ts Li asian pear which I got about 3 years ago to pollinate what I thought was another asian pear that I had that turned out to be a Quince. All I can say was I was sold an asian pear. So last fall I tracked down the best mate for my pear which turned out to be a Ya Li, and there was only one in the state of Arizona, 80 miles from me. So Mr. WeeKreek and I got in the truck and drove to the San Tan Valley to get her.

As you can see from the second picture, it worked, you can see a little pear starting. There are at least 10 pears that I can see, but I bet there are more, as they are pretty hard to find. The third picture is our Ya Li, she is small but she did the trick, she had 5 blooms on her which I plucked off and hand pollinated the other tree with. I read you aren't supposed to let a fruit tree fruit the first year in the ground as you want to encourage roots to go down and not put energy into fruiting. I have done that with both the new peach and pear as much as it breaks my heart. The last picture is of the original tree, my quince which seems to like the company of pears and it is forming tons of fruit this year.

I will send another email with a few other things going on in the garden here...

WeeKreekFarmGirl

Great to hear about the pears and quince. We just happen to have some photos in the "adventure" section from friends who took a hike in the San Tan Regional Park. Interesting that they have grown cotton in that valley.

Below, a couple of flowering quinces that caught my eye. Didn't say anything about fruit quality. They are a different species from the ones usually grown for fruit, but many have fruit that are edible with some effort.

Puttering

Satisfying ground maintenance
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— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) April 9, 2024

Adventure

Hiking the Dynamite Trail, San Tan Regional Park, while the flowers are everywhere:

If you spot a distinctive black and red bug among the plants and flowers when you're exploring the outdoors, don't touch it.

Seriously. Touching that blister beetle can hurt you, leaving a burning sensation on your skin.

These insects, also known as blister bugs or master blister beetles, are showing up in Arizona's wild spaces every spring. While the beetles may be striking to look at, their blood emits a foul smell and causes painful blisters on human skin.

About 150 blister beetle species exist in Arizona. One thing they have in common is how their blood contains a harmful chemical called cantharidin, which not only can harm humans but also pets and livestock.

Here's everything you need to know about blister beetles in Arizona.

Gross:Black beetles are swarming metro Phoenix yards. Here's why, and how to get rid of them

Don't touch them or let your pets touch them. Details at the link.

More California Wildflowers

More suggestions for Southern California sites, but I think you can see owls clover in parts of both northern and southern parts of the state. Shown below with lupine. There is more than one species. It grows in vacant lots near our house.

Moving on to specific Northern California spots:

Buttermilk Bend Trail in South Yuba River State Park near Penn Valley. The easy path runs 2.4 miles alongside the granite-lined pools of the South Yuba River, and interpretive signs identify the flowers. Berry says to look for fairy lanterns, live forever, redbud, and the elusive Dutchman's pipe, a vine with a distinctive saxophone-like flower.

The Pipevine Swallowtail Butterfly is not native to all parts of California, but if you live where this plant (or some ground gingers) grow wild, you may be able to attract it to your garden by planting a Dutchman's Pipe or nectar flowers. They have a wider range in the South and East, though.

More from the University of Florida on Pipevines and Pipevine Swallowtails

Aristolochia species are commonly known as pipevines or Dutchman's pipes because the flowers of some species are shaped like tobacco pipes (Figure 13). They are also known as birthworts ("wort" is Old English for herbaceous plant) because of their historical use in child birth. The name Aristolochia is derived from the Greek roots aristos (best) and lochia (delivery or child birth) (Crosswhite & Crosswhite 1985, Flora of North America undated). All Aristolochiaceae are believed to contain pharmacologically active aristolochic acids (Chen & Zhu 1987).

Although they are now officially banned in many countries, Aristolochia-derived herbal products or parts of the plants themselves are still used in many areas of the world for various conditions including snake bite, gastrointestinal problems, respiratory problems, wounds, infectious diseases, and fever (Austin 2004, Chen & Zhu 1987, Duke 2001, Schaneberg et al. 2002).

Virginia snakeroot, Aristolochia serpentaria L., has been used for many medical applications (Austin 2004, Duke 2001, Heinrich et al. 2009, Moerman 1998), and preparations made from it are still for sale online. An extract of the southwestern pipevine, Aristolochia watsonii Wooton & Standl., was the main ingredient in the snakeroot oil sold by traveling "snakeroot doctors" at medicine shows in the Old West during the 19th century (Crosswhite & Crosswhite 1985). . .

All of our native species of Aristolochia within the range of the pipevine swallowtail are documented larval hosts . .

Aristolochia tomentosa bud Credit Donald W. Hall

Various exotic Aristolochia species are planted as ornamentals because of their unusual and sometimes beautiful flowers. Some of these may be too toxic (or too distasteful) for pipevine swallowtail larvae and may be "death traps" for the larvae.

Much more at the link. Including mimicry between pipevine swallowtails and black swallowtails, other swallowtails, red-spotted purples and . . millipedes?

Gardens of The Horde

Hi KT, The clematis is going gangbusters this year! Wanted to share with the horde.

Thanks for the gardening thread, it's my fave.

Miley

GORGEOUS

These are blooming right now. The yellow and white are miniatures, the flowers are slightly smaller than a dime. The white ones are more the expected size.

Lirio100

So charming . . . .

Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

If you would like to send photos, stories, links, etc. for the Saturday Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, the address is:

Remember to include the nic or name by which you wish to be known at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.

Week in Review

What has changed since last week's thread? Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, Apr. 6

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 01:27 PM

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