spending time outside means encountering critters. in the garden, that means encountering nasty critters. from mosquitoes to wasps to ants that bite, i run into them all.
this is a photo of a leaf footed bug, they don't bite people but they are big and ugly and they fly.
they are sap suckers, meaning that they pierce the fruit and suck out the juice doing damage that causes the fruit to be stunted.
when i am outside in the garden, i love to listen to the birds. often, i can identify the frequent visitors when i hear them. these black eyed susans are a favorite of the goldfinches. so far, when i have been able to hear them and have attempted to photograph them, they have flown away. any kind of movement near them will scare them off. they spend time up in the trees and they are very vocal. i have also encountered bluebirds in the yard, a male specifically, but no opportunity to photograph him has occurred yet.
tomatoes have begun to ripen! if you came to dinner this past weekend, you could have tasted this tomato salad. it has chocolate cherry, gold nugget and bonito ojo tomatoes in it. i also added some banana peppers and lime basil from the garden and tossed it with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
our first crop green and yellow beans are finishing up, it will be time to pull them out soon. in this salad, i blanched the beans, added chick peas and kidney beans as well as onions and banana peppers and tossed it with vinaigrette.
being in the south, you become accustomed to having a bowl of cucumber salad on the table. we had a bunch of cukes to use so i sliced them up, added more banana peppers (pepper plants tend to produce lots of peppers when it is hot, and it is hot here!) and dill from the garden and i tossed it with some cider vinegar and a little sugar. i could easily live on this salad!
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