Wednesday tomatoes - 2 Big Beef & a Red Beefsteak with squirrel bites: 

One: 

Two: 

Three: 

Four: 

Five: 

Six Eastern Swallowtail caterpillars on our parsley. We have about this many every year & the annual survival rate for them to become butterflies is 0 to 1 because birds think they’re yummy: 

The Plot 420 report for Wednesday.

The Big Boy purple hull peas are breaking ground: 

The first planting of corn’s tassels are producing pollen & the honeybees are doing their thing: 

The Black Beauties are starting to make: 

So is the yellow squash: 

Onions with strawberries: 

Onions without strawberries. Conditions in both containers are identical except one has 2 strawberry plants in it. It might just be a coincidence but we’ll see how the experiment of adding strawberries to the onion pot at the house goes: 

Heading home from Plot 420. The field is beautiful & we see a lot of professional photographers photographing couples & families in them but every time I see folks standing out there, all I can think is “chiggers & ticks”: 

Meanwhile, back at the house: 

Afternoon tomatoes - 1 Big Beef & another squirrel bitten Red Beefsteak: 

One of our community garden neighbors gave us some yellow squash so my queen made squash & onions to go with the rest of tonight’s dinner: 

Please click on the photo to enlarge it. I am always looking for new locations to capture sunsets. I accidentally found this spot on a dead end road. While the sunset wasn’t spectacular, something else caught my attention. The sweet fragrance of growing corn filled my senses. Then I noticed how the soft evening light highlighted the emerging tassels of the cornstalks. The flow of the large…

Comic artist Eddy Rivera joins Sam and Marnie for a hard look at how our personal histories affect the characters we create and the kinds of stories we want to tell. Also in this episode: gendering corn plants, the tools we use to create more richly developed characters, the ethics of incorporating or appropriating other people's stories in to our fiction, and how real Indiana stacks up against Pawnee.

Sam recommends: the Parker novels by Donald E Westlake AKA Richard Stark Marnie recommends: H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

****

For more on Eddy Rivera, visit www.http://eddyrivera.com

Follow us on twitter, and subscribe on iTunes, Soundcloud or Stitcher

Just thought it would be a good idea to discuss what is happening with my corn stalks.  As of my last post they displayed tassels that had pollen to use for generating ears of corn.

Today I went outside and I noticed that some of them were growing silks where this pollen should go.  Corn is one of those plants that needs to be pollinated, but the air or wind can easily accomplish this without having to rely on bees.

This is called the silk and this is where the pollen will land as long as you don't have to much wind.  A little breeze will be perfect for the pollen to end up right here.  Hand pollination is also an option as well.

Here is where the pollen is stored and what the silks rely on in order to produce the ears that you need.

I am hoping that my other corn stalks will get tassels soon and silks as well.  It is just a matter of time and I have about a couple of months left at the most which is plenty of time to get many ears of corn.

Pole beans are in the same category and all it takes is time before I start seeing them produce beans through the rest of the month.  They have many flowers and many buds that will eventually flower and create the beans I am looking for.