July fruit and flowers....

 July 20, 2024

This afternoon I am hopefully awaiting the forecast rainfall. It has been just over a week since the last soaker, and the sky is greying over. If no rain falls, the hoses will be coming out for the first time this summer.

It has been a busy week, squirrelling away blueberries,

picking, then processing raspberries,

frozen and in jam...

Processing beans from the first planting. Nine pounds so far.

Cucumbers are growing, and soon it will be pickling time...Looks like the slicers will be first though.

Lots of swelling pumpkins, squash and tomatoes...

Peppers as well.

In the 'about to bloom' department...sunflowers. One is head and shoulders over the rest! (The white flags are stinky dryer sheets fluttering in the breeze, to help repel the nuisance deer...may or may not be working, as there has been no sign of her around the gardens for a bit.)

A red (I hope) trumpet vine given to me a few years ago as a sprig...

has two big, fat bud clusters, and many smaller ones. The Hummers will be in heaven.

Borage is blooming...is there any blue as blue??

Echinacea, daisies, liatris, and day lilies are busting out all over.

 All sorts of pollinating insects are swarming the garden blooms, as well as the tall Joe Pye weed that is blooming around the edges of the clearing. There are 4 to 5 Monarch butterflies who seem to be besotted with the tall milkweed plant in my new perennial bed. They are constantly fluttering around it and nectaring on the blooms. I've examined the leaves periodically, and found one very small Monarch larvae so far. 

Colours....

July 14, 2024

Early in the week, remnants of Hurricane Beryl came gently north, dropping a good inch and a half of rain over the course of a day or so. Since then, the sun has been out, the humidity has risen, night time temperatures are staying in the high teens (low 60's F), and everything is putting on a growth spurt.

Cucumbers and squash are blooming, and setting fruit, and the first planting of beans is being harvested. 

In the garden, I made a better cover for the brassica patch, cutting lengths out of the hose left over from setting up the garden water pump. They are secured into the bed by pieces of dowel.

The row cover slides nicely over the hoops and keeps out the white cabbage moths.

After the rain, things are popping up in the woods as well. We came across this amazing blue mushroom that I haven't been able to ID yet.

A little further along was this pretty mauve coral fungus.

To round out the colours...this orange one, 

And of course, lots of Ghost pipes.

This morning we went blueberry picking. There were lots and lots of the bluish-black guys,

but the pretty blue ones were bigger.

We picked as long as our backs could take it, and have a nice little haul. There is enough for eating some fresh, and freezing some for a future blueberry pie.

Buds and blooms, fruit and fungus....

 July 7, 2024

With the over one and a half inches of rain that fell Friday night and during the day on Saturday, the world is clean and green....even the air has an aroma of warm, moist, green growing things. Today, the blue sky is hosting billowing cumulus  clouds, blindingly white on their tops and edges, slightly grey on their undersides. 

I've never seen such big leaves on my cucumber plants.

The vine tendrils are starting to grab onto the fence, and hidden in the depths is this.

The first bloom!

The zucchini has started to bloom as well, both male and female flowers, so there will soon be fruit.

The first planting of beans is blooming, second planting got put in Friday, just in time for the lovely rain we got that evening.

I am getting such a lot of pleasure out of the perennial bed I am creating with mostly pollinator friendly plants. Things are starting to spread out, bud up and bloom. I have a beautiful clump of red Bee Balm that the Hummers are poking their beaks into. The echinacea in the foreground is a rescue from around the pond. It is tall and strong and taking advantage of it's new digs.

We took yesterday's wood's walk to switch out the SD cards on the trail cameras to coincide with the lull between thunderstorms, and we actually had some sunshine. This picture along the trail looks idyllic...you just can't see the hordes of mosquitoes and deer flies that attacked as soon as I took off my gloves to handle the camera! They were brutal!

I checked on a group of Hazelnut bushes, and sure enough, there are a few nuts growing.

Mr. Buckley showed up at the salt block, his growing antlers encased in velvet.

The white blip beside him might be a bat or a flying squirrel, or an insect closer to the camera. It is hard to tell.

All sorts of fungi are sprouting up in the bush as a result of all the moisture. Here a flash of orange drew my attention, as I am always on the lookout for Chanterelles. It is a chanterelle, but not one you'd want to eat...a Scaly Vase or Woolly chanterelle.

They can get quite large. Here are some babies just starting out.

Elsewhere, this white guy stood out from the green.

And this beautiful frilly bracket fungus was surrounding this small dead branch.

Another pop of colour along the trail.

There is always something interesting to see.

A busy few days tripping around the neighbourhood...

 July 3, 2024

 A little bass fishing earlier in the week...

A fresh fish fry that evening, plus five good fish dinners stashed in the freezer....

We visited...  (https://ww.bonnecherecaves.com/)

and had a great tour through the cavern.

It was good to get back out into the warmth of the day.

The river that created the caves through the limestone, Fourth Chute on the Bonnechere.

 

Then, not too far away, a visit to ... (https://www.shawwoods.ca/)

The alligator boat, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alligator_boat) harking back to logging days...good on water or land. 

A bit of trail exploring there,

then on to Hugli's Blueberry Ranch  (https://blueberryranch.ca/) for a refreshing Kawartha Dairy ice cream cone, 

(https://kawarthadairy.com/)

and a visit to the adjacent greenhouses.

Look at the size of those coleus' leaves!!

Here and there along the trails, my kind of plants... 

This one is Pointed-leaved Tick Trefoil, a pea family member, and a native.

Viper's bugloss, a non-native, but very pretty, and not invasive.

This is a native...Partridge berry, a trailing, evergreen perennial that forms dark green mats across the forest floor. The flowers are fragrant, and each duo turns into one bright red berry later in the season.

And finally...

Soon!!!!