Early June 2015 - After the Texas Floods - Harvesting & Daylily Season

Harvesting has begun in the garden - this is a great year for squash and zucchini.  The tomatoes are also starting to ripen!

Ready to make some salsa!

We've waited too long to harvest the artichokes and they are now blooming.  They are beautiful.

We harvested onions this week.  This year's harvest has not been as robust as in years past.  I think the onions did not get as big because of the rain.

After several weeks of drying out the onions, we cut off the tops and roots and stack them by single row separated by newspaper in a laundry basket (plenty of aeration).

For memory's sake, this is what it has been like around here for the entire month of May!

A yellow mushroom sprang up after the rain.

The rain ensured a pretty daylily season.

Sunny day.


I ordered my daylilies through the mail from Gilbert Wild and Son Co.  They have an infinite number of varieties.  http://www.gilberthwild.com/#

I found this strange beetle today in my blackberries.   It is an Eyed Click Beetle, Alaus oculatus.  Read about it here.  http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/galveston/beneficials/beneficial-52_big-eyed_elater.htm

 It was full size - about 2" long.

First spineless prickly pear bloom of the season.

The hen chicks continue to grow.  We have been keeping them inside, but now let them out a couple of times a day to look for bugs and get some sunshine.  We hope to move them out permanently to the chicken tractor in a couple of weeks.
 

Our hen, Joanie, is approving of them and does not peck them at all.  We think she has been very lonely since the bobcat killed her friends last year.

Hunting for bugs.