Field of Weeds

The longer we stay in our house, the more I love it. Or maybe I should say, the more I love the backyard. I imagine, however, that this might happen wherever I stay for long enough, and get to know a place (the thing is, I’m tired of being in the early stages of getting to know places, but whatever). At any rate, the longer we live here, the more things I find in the backyard to eat. Which is awesome. There were those grapes, earlier in the summer. There’s all kinds of greens, and back in spring there were dandelions, of course. I’m marking all the spots where there’s poke for next year. We can’t eat it right now, but it helps to know where it was before, as it will come back in the spring. Click photos to make them big!

This is wood sorrel, which has a lovely lemony flavor.

And now there are all sorts of exciting things I’m finding. I knew we had a black walnut tree but now I’m able to see the walnuts.


There’s mushrooms. Though most of them are not edible. And also none of the pictures turned out.

Daylilies! Apparently you can dig them up and eat the root, though we haven’t actually tried it yet.

(I forgot to take pictures of the next one…)
Cattails! Again, haven’t tried it yet, but we’ll get around to it.

It’s just nice knowing there’s so many things we can eat, right here in our backyard… next year it will be even better, as the handsome fella is going to build a meadow in the yard, and I’m encouraging him to plant all sorts of useful things. Milkweed, dogsbane… so exciting!
Does anyone know what this is? I’d love to know.

In the meantime, the garden is looking pretty sad.

Yeah.


The beans are hanging on.

The handsome fella actually started clearing some of the weeds. This is where the garlic will go when it arrives.

The crookneck squash are still trying to come along.



The tomatoes, on the other hand, just look sad. We’re still getting a couple but mostly they’re small and sad and rotten and it smells.



On the other hand, the handsome fella planted peas, and they are doing really well.

And carrots.

And tomatillos, even though they have never really ripened. They were supposed to be purple, but they never turned, and neither did the ones of my friends who were growing them.


I love their little lanterns, whether or not we ever eat them.
This is where the melons would have been if they hadn’t rotted, which still makes me sad.

The strawberries are doing well… and the mulching actually kind of worked, which is cool… cause you can see what the rest of the herb bed looks like. Eventually I’ll weed and mulch before winter.

The fennel will be ready soon. I grow it for the seed, its one of my favorites to cook with.

And finally, some of the crookneck squashes that actually survived with no rot. They’re rather small, they were supposed to get quite big. But for some reason we just didn’t have much luck with things fruiting. Don’t know why.