Scene around the Farm

This week’s work gave me plenty of image material for the blog, as is so often the case while tending the different stations on the land. I’ve never seen so many species of swallowtail, and this pipevine swallowtail on a zinnia was striking. Sometimes what I see isn’t so good, namely the grasshopper eyeing the bean leaves, but then our handy egg hens never turn down a snack – there’s a cordless power tool for everything. The orb weaver spider I found one morning on the hard nursery shade cloth created it’s own patterned weave at the center of its web. These always get a break for the insect control they provide near the plants.

The Manzano plantain bananas have reached six feet and are clustered with basal pups. Our hope is that they’ll spread enough to create a thick forest with several water barrels hidden within, in the hope that the water will radiate heat under the canopy for frost protection next Winter. On another bed where I bury most of our kitchen compost appeared an odd flush of green recently. I realized right away that it was germinated Hubbard squash seeds left over from meal preparation, dumped in one of the buried deposits. Growing wild not far from there at The Grove, I discovered what remotely looked to me like a poinsettia, which indeed keyed out to be a native Florida painted leaf poinsettia. I hope it becomes established here as it is the only one so far.

The Royen’s tree cactus still hasn’t found a suitor despite my efforts and those of fellow cactophiles to locate another one of these in bloom somewhere in the U.S, and the first flower is getting set to open any night now. I’ll attempt a self-fertilization though success is unlikely. There is always next year.