What We’ve Been Tending this Week

And what a week it has been. With this heat it’s a good thing the watermelon is plentiful because we’ve been sucking it down to stay hydrated and fueled while caring for everything here. The birds have been working hard too, so their share of the melon crop has been earned. I think they’ve figured out that leaving some juice in the eaten out melon halves attracts a week’s worth of bugs, therefore extending the buffet. Farm and homestead plants need daily monitoring, watering, fertilization and repositioning. Mom’s orchids are flowering for an unexpected bonus round since December, and her Gasteria succulent has divided into a handsome clump on The Grove table.

In this short amount of time a number of planted cactus have rewarded our TLC by putting out arms. The Myrtillocactus Geometrizans (edible bilberry) by the wild blueberry patch is also liking its new location and sporting first arms. Over in the driveway cactus bed, the tall blue Facheiro (Pilosocereus Pachycladus) has three arms starting on its sides.

And in the nursery tunnel, the week-to-week growth amazes us. Good ventilation has stabilized temperature and moisture and that is encouraging healthy roots with vigorous growth. Next to the most recently harvested watermelon is a seed-grown Arizona fishhook barrel cactus about the size of a billiards ball. It has a new home in the barrel bed, next to the bilberry bed. Since the tip-over accident, those 1400 native fragrant prickly apple cactus seedlings are all growing nicely since I had to transfer them to fourteen trays. Two thousand more are on deck for transferring to cell trays very soon.

Finally, the brood cluster of tiny yellow spiders you see here……well I thought they were cute but was quickly persuaded to gently relocate them outside of Mom’s scream radius and onto a cedar branch.