Photos
Last Spider of the Season
All summer the garden is thick with big, fat orb weaver spiders. By mid-autumn, they're all but gone. Here's one of the few left weaving a web backlit by the sun setting over the Pacific.
Video: A final walk through the hanging gourd garden
Winter is well on it's way and the wind and weather are taking their toll on the hanging gourd garden. Here's a final walk through the garden before it's gone for another year.
Tom Thumb Peas
The near freezing weather has ended pretty much everything in the veggie garden but these Tom Thumb peas. The plants are tiny, but they kick out a whole lot of peas.
Video: A Fallen Agave
The first real rains of the season blew down this 20 foot tall agave flower the woodpeckers had stuffed with acorns.
Out with the Old
The Halloween decorations from the front yard sitting around on the bench waiting to go back into storage. I wonder what they're talking about.
Lemongrass Then and Now
From the "If you water it, it will grow" file comes this lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus) rescued from the dry herb garden. In March I planted a small, mostly dead clump. In June it began to show life. By October it ruled its section of the tropical garden
A Fungus Among Us
This odd looking thing popped up out of some leaf litter yesterday. It's slightly squishy like a mushroom, but it doesn't look like any one I've ever seen before. Anyone have an idea what it might be?
Gasteria Ellaphiae
Gasteria Ellaphiae is an interesting succulent that does quite well in light-to-medium shade as long as the soil is kept warm and dry. This plant was a thumb-sized pair of leaves and no roots last spring, but, as you can see from the photo, it now has half a dozen new leaf clusters that can be separated into new plants.
Towering Tithonia
Tithonia diversifolia in autumn The Mexican Sunflower (Tithonia diversifolia) grew 20 feet tall over the summer, but now that autumn is here, all but the uppermost leaves have died back. Standing below, the effect is kind of Dr Seussian, a forest of towering sticks with a few green feathers sticking out the top.
October Tomatoes
The summer veggie garden is now down to the hot peppers, a few bell peppers, and a bunch of raggedy, but hanging in there, tomato plants. Chief among them is the Costolutos, which took a hard hit about a month ago but rebounded to flower and fruit for a third round in this growing year. A great tomato by any measure, it's interesting that the first bunch back in June were really deeply lobed, but they've gotten progressively smoother since. It's now mid-October and the ones currently ripening only hint at lobes with some coloring. Otherwise, they're nearly as smooth [keep reading...]