Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, July 5

Hi, KT … It's good to see you back in the Captain's Chair again. Excellent column! Attached is a pic I found in files on the Venerable XHD - some spider lilies. These were in a 'kinda-sorta' garden next to what had once been JAX Brewery in the French Quarter.

It was about 0730, and the light was great. Equipment was a Bogen tripod, Olympus OM-4 (black) w/16mm Olympus macro lens. Exposure? Heh. A triple exposure on the same film frame. No easy task with the OM-4. It had a button that had to be depressed when 'advancing' the frame (which kept the film stationary in-camera) for each subsequent exposure. In reality, this was a 'hit 'n hope' shot, and I was quite the happy boy when the print was ready at Colorpix. It was also a good seller. Sometimes luck trumps skill, yes?

Oh. Filmstock? It was probably one of the stocks from Agfa, 'cos I really like its 'European' color balance from that time.

Dr_No

A great trip down memory lane. Timely, too. Great substitute for fireworks in the garden (especially around dogs - ask me how I know).

More potential fireworks substitutes. Gotta watch 'em:

I missed the peak, dangit. Thanks for what you do.

Bonecrusher

I think the buds are lovely. And the flowers, even if you miss the peak. Not as dangerous as fireworks (h/t NorCal Sierra Foothills Lurker). Terrible.

Edible Gardening/Putting Things By

Hi KT,

NorCal Sierra Foothills Lurker here and so glad you are back and hoping you do well. I’m sending pictures of our first Armenian cucumbers and the huge leaves of our one zucchini plant. We already have too many zucchini from it! Be well and thank you so much for your work!

By the way, we have quite a few tomato plants but they’re just starting to make fruit.

The cucumbers look great!

Gardens of The Horde

What is the red and green plant? Made this tabletop waterfall, but don’t know what the red/green arrowhead leave plant is. Field Marshal Zhukov

Nice arrangement started there.

Well, Horde:

Name that plant . . . .

Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

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A single bee can produce 1 tablespoon of honey in its lifetime.

683 bees fly roughly 32,550 miles to gather 5.93 lbs of nectar from about 1,185,000 flowers in order to make one 9.5 oz. jar of honey.pic.twitter.com/NOCQBXQu6c

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 25, 2025

Walnuts are great at this stage and lack allergenic insect parasites. Black walnuts are much messier than this.

Walnuts grow inside a central stone that is surrounded by lime coloured outer coverings called husks or hulls

pic.twitter.com/3KrTXgnHOg

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) June 15, 2025

posted by K.T. at 01:27 PM

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