From garden to table

Fresh garden greens (Forellenschulss, Lollo Rossa, Black seeded simpson, and cilantro), and dragon tongue beans.




Salad, stir fried beans with a little bit of teryiaki sauce (the kids were upset that most of the purple color disappeared during cooking!), and sauteed red cabbage and onions. A complete backyard garden meal. (sorry - forgot to take a before picture of the red cabbage before chopping it up!)

Garden critters

The anole lizard. Very common here in our yard. These lizards are usually green, but can sometimes change their colors - we've seen lots of brown ones. We counted 8 of these in our front garden. Here's a link for more info: Anole Lizard











One of our favorite insect critters is the ladybug. This one here is taking a rest on our chile pequin plant.

And, the good 'ole roly poly, or pill bug, or whatever you call them. These things are great amusements for my kids. I remember having a roly poly farm when I was little. And we recently discovered that these little guys love to eat the roots and leaves of newly sprouting bean seeds. We're learnin' something new every day.

Goodbye cool weather veggies - hello Doves!

With the warm weather arriving and getting warmer everyday, our cool season crops are slowing wilting away. While I look forward to tomatoes, peppers, and melons, I'll really miss being able to step into the backyard and pick fresh greens for our meals. They just don't like our Texas summers.























And look! A pair of doves had decided to nest in our persimmon tree - right outside our bedroom window. I commented that their nest looks very unstable. A and I looked up some info, and it turns out that doves are known for making shabby nests - sometimes the eggs fall right through the bottom! Let's hope that doesn't happen to ours!

Prickly Pear hopes

Our cactus is starting to fruit.

Hopefully we'll get enough this year to make some prickly pear jam. We only had 3 fruits last year.

First!

Our first tomato!

Our first pepper! (a Flame pepper - supposed to be very hot)


Our first blackberries!

Our first lemon! (okay, the whole tree is covered with these, but this one seemed the biggest).


And, this is not a first, but an update to the earlier swallowtail caterpillar chrysalis. We had been checking it every morning, waiting to see. The only day we did not check it was Easter Sunday, and wouldn't you know it, on Monday morning, all we found was the husk. It would have been awesome for my kids to see the new butterfly Easter morning. They were still pretty excited with the husk - that seemed to be evidence enough for them.

Randoms pics from the garden

I took a few quick pics from our garden this evening:

Remember the swallowtail caterpillar I talked about in an earlier post? (it still hasn't hatched). Here is what the caterpillar looks like when it first hatches out of it's egg and before it sheds it's first skin:
Here is one of my dill plants already starting to flower:

Pea pods:

Pea pods no more:

The exploding cabbage

What happened to our last cabbage?

a. Some critter came along and took a bite out of the cabbage.
b. One of the boys (or both - they can do a lot of damage when they team up) decided to take a whack at it with a shovel.
c. It's the natural growing process of the cabbage.

Which answer do you choose?

Well, answer a. has happened to our cabbage before, but never to quite this extreme. Deer never make it into our area (since we're in the middle of a neighborhood, and our dog is pretty good at chasing out any critters that make their way into our backyard. So, this was not a critter attack.

As far as answer b. goes, we did lose one head of cabbage (rather part of a head) to an experiment (of which I was not informed). Angel decided to see if other plants would grow inside a cabbage! He planted a couple of bean seeds and a tomato plant into little holes he dug out of the cabbage head. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of this (failed) experiment. But no little boys messed with the cabbage this time.

So that leaves us with the last answer. This is what will eventually happen to all cabbages as time progresses. The head of the cabbage will split open, and a seed stalk will emerge. Well, that's what I read anyways. I'm hoping it goes as planned.

P.S. I edited this post because apparently the answer to this question was not very clear. Is it clear now?