Meanwhile, Out the other window……

https://eatgrueldog.wordpress.com/2026/06/01/meanwhile-out-the-other-window/

The Hopi Black Dye sunflowers are so close to being dry and ready to de-seed and pack and it is so exciting!

An aside: does anyone have a good recommendation for where to get empty seed packets? I would abhor ordering them online, I'd rather do something makeshift, though I will be selling some of these so it would be nice to ensure nothing spills in transit if possible.

#AskFedi #Sunflowers #Gardening #Zone9

Preparing to shut down the garden for summer as temps just hit 110s (after a week of perfect 70s no less). Pulled what corn I could, only four ears matured this season but we'll dry and store it and try again at the end of summer. The squash are still holding on, most of the sunflowers are about ready to cut and bag, and I'll be caging the tomatoes to see if they'll produce through the summer. Our kale is little but I'll be cutting it this week, and there are a few onions to pull and age also. With that, the garden will be just about ready to turn over to the chickens for the season!

Nopales harvest is officially done: our yield was 14 pounds all said, and I could have cut more while still leaving pads to grow on the cacti, but I maxxed out my capacity for cleaning and preparing them for storage. We gave some away, have some still fresh in the fridge (what we haven't cooked already) and I have 7 quarts of nopalitos fermenting on the shelf.

It's so odd how inverted our seasons are compared to most of you: as you enter your season of fertility we are mostly shutting down, preparing to rest the land through its harshest months before having another growing season in late summer. Though we aren't done! The mesquite pods come mature around the solstice, and in July or August las tunas (prickly pear fruits) will be ready for harvest also.

#Gardening #Zone9 #Mojave #Permaculture #Farm #SustainableFarming #IndigenousFoods

Interesting selection of warm season #seeds from this Native Seeds Search in #Arizona. I think I have enough seeds for the summer, but the varieties here were fascinating to look through--a lot of things I've never heard of before. Some Texan and Mexican varieties that would probably work really well here in #Florida.

#gardening #Zone9 #Zone10
https://www.nativeseeds.org/collections/popular-warm-season-varieties

We accidentally created a mutant cross-pollinated squash. I'd heard of this, and perhaps it's happened to us before with the fodder squashes from last season (those were dreadful to me but the pigs didn't care, I thought it was more about where they were grown than their genetics), but this time it's... delightful. Most likely one of our ronde de nice summer squashes crossed with delicata, since those are what happened to grow nearby, and it's sweet like a delicata winter squash but with the texture of a summer squash. It also might be happening with another, since the "zuchinni" growing nearby is, uh, well, it looks like nothing I've seen before. I'll post a thread of mutant squash pictures soon.

In my defense, I didn't think any of this was going to grow, since these seeds were all so old. I let my children seed blast this basin thinking "well, we'll get what we get!" and then nothing germinated for three weeks so I figured it was a lost cause. Then we manured it to prepare it for the next season and, well, now we have six foot long squash vines and more fruit than we're going to know what to do with when it comes time to harvest them. Happy accidents!

#Gardening #Zone9 #MojaveDesert #California #Permaculture #Squash

Spring finally came! I wish they were pacific bleeding heart, but I'm still glad they are here.

>Some random variety of bleeding heart that was here when we moved in and is so happy that it is a force to be reckoned with. (The hummingbirds buzz it regularly)
>Flashback calendula (loved by the bee flies!)
>Sedum oreganum
>Newly emerged crocosmia lucifer (beloved of the hummingbirds)
>soon to bloom dwarf purple alyssum (the powerhouse living groundcover of our garden and magnet of the bees)

This is in our western exposure, rain shadow bed under the eaves and quite dry. We are slowly infilling with mainly native sedum and a few other respectful sedum friends.

Dreaming of a prickly pear.

This is part of a large bed that is mainly asparagus and chilean guava berry with interplantings.

#gardening #bloomscrolling #pnwGardening #zone8 #zone9
#gardeningWithChronicIllness