Garden news, plus a nice walk

Judith and Meredith outside of Woods Coffee

We expected rain this morning, and it was overcast and doing just that when I left the house early to join the Fairhaven walkers at Woods Coffee. But you can see it turned out to be a really nice day, with lots of blue skies with no more rain. We enjoyed coffee after a four-and-a-half mile walk with lots of uphill, and then I headed over to the Farmers' Market to gather some greens to complement what I am harvesting from my garden. I saw this beautiful sunflower at the market, with the sun shining through:

Smiling in the sunshine

Hmmm, I thought to myself. Nate has planted lots of sunflowers in his garden plot, and I haven't seen any blooms there yet, so I went out to investigate the garden before sitting down to write this post.

Nate's sunflowers growing next to the fence

There aren't even any beginning blooms, so I suspect that the one in the picture was grown in a greenhouse, don't you think? While I was out there, I noticed that the borage flowers in my garden were full of bees, both honeybees and bumblebees. They love those flowers so much that I'll wait awhile before I pull some of them out. Just look:

Borage flowers with bee friends

In the middle of this picture of the borage, you can see a black thing, a bumblebee, with the pollen baskets on its hind legs full to the brim. I figured he would be leaving for home soon, but I tried to get a closeup (all the pictures are taken with my cellphone camera), and this is what I got. If you enlarge it, you can see his left leg basket is so full of pollen it looks like it might overflow.

Look at all that pollen!

I wandered around the rest of the garden, looking at all the vegetables and flowers coming up, which also caused me to notice that I need to get out there and weed. Those blasted buttercups are invading, along with some other unwanted guests. Time to get out and spend some time out there, like maybe this afternoon. The clouds have returned and it should be fairly comfy outside.

Mystery squash

That volunteer squash coming up in the community section has produced blooms, and here's the beginning of what might be a spaghetti squash, or... any ideas? The plant is growing like crazy and has several other blossoms beginning. I've already gathered a few zucchini from the community garden, knowing that they are much tastier when a reasonable size. I remember how quickly they grow. You gotta keep on top of 'em.

Nate's raspberries

I see that Nate's raspberry crop is beginning to ripen, too. One of them accidentally fell into my hand and I was forced to eat it. What an explosion of flavor! Can there be anything more scrumptious than purloined fruit? It was all I could do to restrain myself. Some of them are in danger of falling right off the vine, into waiting hands. I'd better inform Nate.
:-)