A couple weeks ago, I showed you our glut of jalapeño peppers.  Now they are ripening to red.

Once they turn red and you roast them, they are called chipotle.  Totally different flavor.  I kinda like chipotle (in small amounts) but raw jalapeños:  not so much.

 

I thought you might like to know the difference.

 

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

I saw these pitcher plants in the Ingles store, and they just tickle me.  I don't want to keep them alive at my house, but I do love seeing them.  They are carnivorous plants:  they have a liquid enzyme in the bottom of their blooms (the pitchers) that dissolves insects that fall into the cups.  Kinda creepy, but kinda cool, too.  

 

Anyway, I thought you might like to see some pretty flowers today.  Besides, it's my friend's birthday, and I needed to send her flowers.  

 

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SANDY!!!

 

Here is our 2026 Butternut harvest.  There were 22, not counting the wormy ones.  There were a few that the worms got, but I put them in the compost bin.  They will probably sprout in the next week.  I love seeing that.  I'll show you when it happens again.

 

Next we have to cure them.  So we brush a bit of isopropyl alcohol on the cut ends, and leave them in a well ventilated space for a couple weeks.  We've done it like this for the last few years, and they last well into the summer.  In fact, we cooked one from last year just yesterday and made butternut squash soup.  Delish!!!

 

I think the recipe is in the recipe section.  Let me go check...  Yep.

 

Just so you know, if you don't grow your own, and have to buy butternuts at the farmers market, or in the store:  the best part is the neck.  It is solid squash.  The bulb at the bottom is the seed cavity.  So unless you are saving or cooking the seeds, you get more for your money with a thick necked squash.  

 

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

I love it when the leaves start to fall.  This is the trail at Meeks Park.  And it's just getting started.

 

Go there today!!!

 

 

HAPPY FALL!!!

 

Look how pretty!!  That's why I grow them.  Nobody I know can eat them:  they are too HOT!!!  But aren't they pretty?  

Nice thing is:  the bugs don't like them, so there's no fight there.  And they look like Christmas to me.  

That's worth a few feet of space in the garden.  Worth it to me, and it's my garden, after all.  

 

HAPPY FALL Y'ALL!!!

1st

I looked it up, and found out that this native wildflower is called Blue mistflower, Conoclinium coelestinum.  That's a mouthful!!!

 

Let me go to my books and see what I can find out for us...

 

Interestingly, it was once classified as Eupatorium, the same genus as Joe Pye Weed.  I can see the resemblance.  At first I thought it looked like Ageratum;  and don't you know, that's what the article I read said too.  They are closely related.  Cool!!!

 

Anyway, these were in the same ditch as the cattails and goldenrod next to the cotton field in Suffolk.

Definitely worth the stop on my way home.

 

 

HAPPY FALL, Y'ALL!!!

 

 

See what I mean?  Acres and acres of cotton!!!

 

 

HAPPY FALL!!!

 

Driving through Suffolk, VA on Tuesday I HAD to stop and take pictures of the cotton fields.  They are so pretty.  

 

This field was conveniently located next to a church with a big parking lot, so I pulled off the road and took a bunch of pix.  I got lucky on this one.  Between the church parking lot and the cotton field is a long line of cattails, Typha sp., and Goldenrod, Solidago sp.  I love seeing them too.

 

The cotton, Gossypium sp., grown in Suffolk is some kind of hybrid, identified with a number.  The fields were marked according to the hybrid and the agricultural owner of the seeds.  I don't care about that, I just love seeing acres and acres of cotton.

 

Later in the fall, after the cotton is harvested, the fields are bare except for tufts of fluff everywhere.  That is kinda neat too.  Sorry I will miss it this year. 

 

 

HAPPY FALL!!!

 

On my morning walk on Monday I saw that the Ginkgoes are starting to drop their leaves.  I love when the sidewalk looks like this.  

 

Do you know these trees, Gingko biloba?  They have gorgeous leaves the shape of butterflies that turn yellow in the fall.  While I was in Norfolk I checked, and the ones on Bolling Avenue are doing the same thing.  

 

Besides the beautiful golden leaves, the female trees grow soft fruits about the size of persimmons, and in the fall they drop on the sidewalk too.  You definitely want to avoid them, because stuck on the bottom of your shoes is gross.  They have an odor similar to dog poop.  I guess I should say "an aroma of rotting flesh."  Either way, I don't want that on MY shoes, or worse: on my carpet.

 

But I do love Gingko trees, especially in the fall.  I hope you see them in your travels;  just roll up the windows.  ;)

 

 

HAPPY FALL!!!

 

 

 

 

Don't you love seeing bits of fall everywhere?  This is in Virginia Beach:  a great big traffic circle with a park in the middle.  I saw lots of leaves on the ground and a pretty maple tree in the distance showing its fall color.  See the big tree with the open branches?  It is a Deodar Cedar, Cedrus deodara.  This one is huge, right in the middle of this park.  I just had to go see it up close.  And guess what!!!  It is loaded with those gorgeous lavender cones.

 

 

I think they are so cool.  Momma used to use the tops of them as "wood roses."  Anyway, I thought you'd like to see the tree up close.

 

 

HAPPY FALL!!!