Hi All,

First year with olives and capers. I live in a region where they're barley happy in the summer and definitely wouldn't survive the winter outdoors.

I knew that getting into it, and have space set aside for them. I also have grow lights that probably do better than what they got during the summer. So my question is, what kind of environment do I give them so they think it's winter?

Like I said, if I crank the grow lights I wouldn't be surprised if they flowered over winter, and I don't want them losing track of the seasons (unless they don't really care).

Any tips?

I couldn't find them after a week or so when they should have been readily visible. I looked up statistics and apparently only 2-10 percent of the caterpillars survive. I also read that captive breeding can be a problem due to parasites spreading through the population and due to overconsumption of milkweed resulting in not enough being available for all of the larvae. The solution? Next year I'm gonna add butterfly weed and other native milkweeds to allow for more eggs to be laid!

I hope this isn’t too off-topic for this community.

I have an old grass patch that I want to replace with Irish moss. Would love some advice on how!

Location: Seattle, USA.

Space: 15x12 foot section, partly under a laurel and a deciduous tree.

Soil: I’m not at all knowledgeable about soil, but heres what I know… It was originally just dirt with a on old lilac in it, then the lilac was replaced by grass, then 95% of the grass died during a construction project last year. Now it’s hard-packed soil and random tufts. It gets a small amount of leaves and other debris from the trees above it.

Sunlight: Direct sun for about half the day, then shaded by a house. Sunnier at one end than the other.

Questions:

1. What organic material (if any) should I use to condition the soil? How should I apply it?
2. I’ve read that 5-5-5 NPK fertilizer is good for Irish moss, but also that too much nitrogen is bad. Should I go lower nitrogen? How much fertilizer anyway?
3. How often should I water? How thoroughly?
4. I bought a small number of plugs to experiment in one corner before going all out. What’s the best way to fill in between them with seeds?

Maybe nothing special, just made my day.

It's already starting to dry up, so I deadheaded and am drying her petals.

Even as the colors start to dull, she remains such a beautiful flower.

If anyone has any ideas of what to use the petals for, I'm all ears. Right now I'm thinking either in candles or maybe some sort of body product... I've got to do more research.

As they are quite invasive, I have plenty of them in my garden. If I shred them to small pieces will it be good for mulch ? Talking about the entire stem, not just the leaves

Anyone dealt with this before? All the newest growth is turning brown. My other raspberry plants are fine, just this one is currently suffering.

This little gal has done surprising well considering all the competition it has around it.

Planted a seed in which we did not know what would grow, and we can't figure out which plant it is. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

This is the first year it flowers, hoping to get fruit this year.

What's going on?

This guy was between 5 and 7 feet long. I'm no herpetologist, so I'd love to hear what kind of snake you think it is. I was guessing black racer or rat.

I also saw a huge black bear earlier in the hike. It didn't move when we called out, so that was a little concerning. But eventually, it waddled off after munching on a bunch of vegetation.

All in all, an amazing 10-mile trek through the breezy spring woods.

!

This is the first photo of the process. Get ready for some action

I spent the day yesterday wandering around some trails in the Shawnee National Forest (southern Illinois) from the Golden Circle trailhead to Pounds Hollow and back. I didn't keep super good track of my route, but it was something like (trail numbers): 1440 to 154 to 001 to 155 to 001 to 137A to 165 to 166 to 164 to 001 to 180 to 185 to 184 to 183 to 006, bushwhack to 134 to 006A to 006B to 109, roadwalk Karbers Ridge to 001 to 010A. Whew! The River to River Trail Society has some excellent brochures with georeferenced PDFs that cover trails in this area.

The weather was a bit sticky, but not too bad - high temps in the lower 80s. Between some recent rain and increased horse traffic for the summer, low spots in the trails are getting pretty torn up in places, particularly as you get closer to the various horse camps. Poison ivy is out in force, ticks are too so take reasonable precautions.

The area is a mix of pleasant forests, clifftop vistas, and streambeds (almost all dry at the moment). Pounds Hollow Lake is one of the ones in the area created by the CCC building a dam in the 1930s and has a reasonably popular swimming beach, as well as rest rooms and potable water.

I had planned to camp at Pounds Hollow, but I stupidly forgot to pack cash to pay for the $10 fee, so what was planned as a 20 mile day turned into a 29 miler when I took the most direct route back to the trailhead where I started. There are a couple of other good spots along that route back, but all the water sources were dry or stagnant, and I didn't have enough water along for dinner & breakfast so I said the heck with it and came home. All told, 29.2 miles in just a shade over 12 hours. The last 4 or so were pretty tough, but I made it.

More pictures at imgur.

I only recently finished my main veg raised beds and sectioned off wild garden so I'm behind in the season.

I have some beans planted, and some plug plants (kale, chard & spring onions - all they had left!) on the way.

Are there any recommendations for good zone 9 late season seeds to plant outside?

Any hoya heads here?

This one had a learning curve, I'd heard they were thirsty but couldn't believe it needed that much water. After many lost peduncles, I've got one set of flowers opening and another close behind.

I'm hoping next year to try to grow a few plants on my apartment's deck. It's half sun and I live in a temperate area where I've had family grow tomatoes, potatos, peas, beans, etc.

I feel like any fruit or veg that can grow on a trellis should, in theory, work. Anyone have any lived experience to share? I'm not terribly good with plants, so I also ask the question "should a novice tackle this kind of project"?

Finally blooming after a long, dryer than normal spring!

I only discovered the app a couple of days ago when I researched recommended apps for hiking. I want to like it, but the iPhone app is just mega unstable. Is this anyone else’s experience? It just hangs and crashes almost always when I try to start recording or load a route. I can’t understand how an established platform for over 10 yrs isn’t optimised. I use an iPhone 13 mini with latest os and latest app version of Gaia.

singularity by Arx Zyanos

via flickr

"Photographed while walking through a nature reserve during a snowstorm and dense fog.

I used four times the exposure time and could create a high key shot by this way."

Apologies for the bad photo but I finally saw a monarch after a few years of diligently avoiding all milkweed plants in the garden. I'm so excited to see such a beautiful creature!

So excited to see a new spike emerging!

Since the depth of field of macro lenses is very narrow and it is not possible to have the whole flower in focus, this picture is focus stacked from almost 40 images.

I planted my first garden this year and have been having a blast watching everything grow so far and I was out watering today and found thy my green beans have already started to produce! It seemed like yesterday there were they were pretty pink flowers haha.

Any advice on when to harvest?

This little guy was crawling around on the hiking trail my partner and I were on in the central Appalachians

This was a mile into the 19 mile elk knob summit trail.

There is a pair of Red-Backed Shrikes in my neighbourhood that I haven't yet been able to see. I knew, however, where they typically hang out so I went there yesterday with my camera and tripod, set up the camera to point and potential perches and finally managed to see them and take a few short videos!

Their German name, Neuntöter, translates to "Nine Killer". It is said that they kill nine things before they actually eat one. This isn't actually too far fetched as Red-Backed Shrikes kill insects, small rodents or baby birds and hang them up on thorny bushes and other plants for later. The bush the female is perched on later on in the video is a blackberry bush which has thorns.

By Shin Ikegami

She has more photos in the same sort of "moonlit" style on Flickr and at https://shinikegami.com/

A lil bee buddy pollinating some Penstemon digitalis!

We’re growing a bunch of morning glories on a string trellis thingie along the ramp up to our apartment, and I just really love it each morning seeing a handful of the day’s babies. ! ! !