The first Cherokee Purple tomato

The first Cherokee Purple tomato, grown from seed saved from farmer’s market tomatoes last year: I’ve been watching it turn color for a week now, and I thought it was finally time to pick it. It’s smaller than most of the other fruits on the plant, but I’m guessing it’ll be pretty tasty…

Hymenocallis

Peruvian daffodil (Hymenocallis festalis): John’s sister sent down a little package of presents the last time she visited over ten years ago. A bulb of this plant was in that package. That one bulb has multiplied all over the place, some in places where we put it, others in places where soil with the some bulb offsets was moved to. And some are even coming in places–like the lawn–where it probably have only arrived via seed.

This plant clearly has a life wish. No problem. We like it. It’s happy with little or heavy watering, dappled shade to full sun. And it smells great.

Moth-eating drosera

A moth that died in the arms of Drosera dichotoma ‘Giant,’ a carnivorous sundew in the bog garden: When I first put out some carnivores I was thinking, “Ooh cool! Bug-eating plants!” Now that I’m starting to see all the carnage–this moth, plenty of gnats, and a beautiful orange dragonfly–I’m starting to worry about my ethics. I’m a vegetarian, so why can’t the plants be too? Still, I guess it’s some sort of karmic payback: I eat veggies, so some of my veggies eat meat.

Drosera Marston Dragon flower

The flowering stem of another carnivore, Drosera x ‘Marston Dragon.’ Droseras have a reputation for reseeding like weeds. No weeds spotted so far, but it’s early yet in the season…

Wedding lupine

This sad little lupine is the descendant of a package of seeds that were given out at a wedding we went to on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. There was a bare spot in the yard, so the package got emptied into it. But there was a reason the spot was bare: The area got almost no water and even weeds had a hard time getting a hold. The lupines never have attained much size–this one is less than four inches tall–but enough keep coming back to remind us of that misty summer day.

And oh yeah, here are a couple of the images I’m printing up. The first one: Undine Falls, Yellowstone National Park. The second: Tower Falls Viewpoint, Yellowstone National park.

Undine falls

Tower Falls viewpoint