Shady Maple Farm CSA: Week 10 Flowers galore and the 1st watermelon

Up close with a rose.

Zinnia colors abound.

Cheery sunflowers.

Anna pushing her youngest who LOVES it!

Lisa tugging a lovely load of statice and zinnias from the far field. Water sloshing along.

Lovely colors of statice in one of her buckets. So delicate, yet so sturdy.

Yellow petals unfurl to show pink on these zinnias.

This "new to us" sunflower has really tall and strong stems. Lisa likes this variety.

Lilies opening, bottom flowers open first.

Bright pink.

Showy white. Snow-like white.

A shimmer of pinkish lavender on this lily. Bright orange anthers really show up.

When the orange anthers have split like this, the pollen may start to stain things it lands on. Like table clothes or light colored counter tops.

A bed full of multi-colored snapdragons.

A bed full of more solid colored and true colors of snapdragons. These stand out more.

A variety of snapdragons with Bells of Ireland in the background.

Asters in many colors. Purple blooming oregano in the back right with green lovage in the back left.

Close up of a pink aster uncurling.

Close up of a purple one.

Pink with yellow centers.

They seem to face the morning sun like a sunflower would.

A bumble bee getting a snack.

The variegated rose blooms near the herb and flower beds with our farmhouse in the background.

Snapdragons, then cape fuchsia and then the house. Not a bad place to be hanging out.

Sunny bright snapdragons with young foxglove to the left.

A perfect golden zinnia.

A bumble bee crawling up and over this purple cone flower.

Fuchsias love shade near the lathe house. Many times hummingbirds have been spotted here darting around. The bird house is frequented in the spring.

One of the large dinner plate dahlias that survived the winter by having the luck of being in the greenhouse. Its counterparts that were outside weren't so lucky.

A couple of our new dahlias we selected for the cut flower portion of the harvest boxes. White flowers always add zip to bouquets.

This looks richer in person than as a photo. It is still very pretty!

Once again the honeysuckle has attracted my camera. So many beautiful colors on one plant. Hummingbirds frequent this plant often, too.

Morning glory seeds we started in the greenhouse in spring of 2013 sowed volunteers and planted themselves here this year. This shows how they twine up around the posts all by themselves. They grow the same direction all the time, up and around to the right.

These are morning pictures, by late afternoon these open flowers will shrivel and die. :( They are pretty while they last!

Here are a few of the bright blue morning glory flowers.

Scabosia or pin cushion flower we grew from seed has started blooming. The bumble bees have found it, too.
This is a perennial and will come back year after year.

The blue Scabosia has longer outside petals than the previous white one does.

A bed FULL of flowers we have grown from seed. This area we "re-claimed" from a section of the farm that was a broken down barn and a pile of "junk". Anna and her cherubs parade in the background.

Grandma Daisy Gardner (her real name!) lived in the single wide trailer on the farm for many years. Many a deal was brokered on her porch, usually over a meal or beverage she had put together. Here are her rules, they still hang on her porch. She passed away a few years ago at the wonderful age of 99 and 9 months. She wasn't living here at the time as she had moved to Keizer to assisted living.
She almost made it to 100!

This is really early for Triple Crown blackberries to be ripening.

There are quite a few ready and also quite a few green ones.

The very tall canes arching up high will produce the berries for next year's crop. The canes that produce berries this year will be done with their life after the berries are gone. Canes live for two years, the first year to grow foliage, the second to produce berries, then they are cut off at ground level and tossed or burned.

A bucket of snapdragons up close. Number 1.

Number 2 bucket.

Number 3 version of the gorgeous snapdragons.

Number 4.

Lisa getting to hold her grandson at the farm. Yummy fingers!

He is playing with his Oma!

These figs are delicious.

The lilies blooming with the large curly willow in the background.

I wish you could hear this! She has figured out how to gargle this summer! So very cute!

My niece Angie and her little "gargler" bringing in the lemon cucs.

Another great niece has figured out how to climb up the little slide's ladder.

Heading down on her own. So proud of herself! Isn't she cute?

Let's try this again...

Yup, it was just as much fun this time! WOW!

Lemon cucs hold down the table cloth.

Lisa pulling another cart of pretty flowers right by my camera. Oh my gosh, what variety!

Remember the little one on the slide? She is making her way out through the cucumbers and summer squash. They are prickly plants, too. She is determined!
"Mom is out here so I need to get to her."

This is how yellow crookneck squash grows. You might be able to see the little spines on the stems that scratch not only arms but the fruit itself. We try to delicately pick these so they don't end up with scratched surfaces.

This is how zucchini grows. Each female flower on all the summer squash will turn into a fruit. The male flowers have skinny stems and will not produce a fruit at all. All these are female flowers as they are all producing a squash.

L u n c h t i m e ! ! !

Jalapeno peppers surrounded with lusciousness. A delicate "popper" for sure.

Today's pasta salad. So rich and full of tasty flavor.

Grams rocks the stroller as he is fussy before nap time.

She's still got the touch!

Some sunflowers are taller than others out in the field. Such a pretty "fence" dividing the fields.

Out picking peppers. The view back toward the greenhouses. Peppers left, carrots right and then summer squash.

I love that they are all eager to try and eat almost everything out here at the farm. My great niece is eating a lemon cuc. She is the one who was sliding down the slide and trudging through the prickles to get to her mom who was helping to pick today.

A variety of peppers we picked today.
All of these are mild peppers.

The field tomatoes are starting to get ripe.
Pretty soon there will be a zillion! Or at least a lot. :)

These are called "Fooled You" jalapeno peppers. They have the taste but not the heat of a regular jalapeno pepper.

These are a mini-bell peppers.

Sweet banana. They change color from greenish yellow, to yellow, to orange, to red. Sometimes they have a bit of purplish black along the way. They are edible at all stages of color.

Another mini bell. These change color also from green to dark green to red in color. Red is the sweetest.

And another. Green to orange. Orange is supposed to be the sweetest. Once again, they can be eaten at all stages.

Sweet Cheyenne pepper. Various color changes also.

Bell peppers all start out green then turn to red over time. It may take them three to four weeks to change color.

Celery growing over its raised bed edges.

A sunflower in the breeze.

Lettuce going to seed. Each little pod has a bunch of seeds inside. Once lettuce starts to "bolt" or grow a center shoot, the taste is gone. It is a protective device so animals like deer won't want to eat it when it is going to seed and will be reproducing. A white substance like latex paint appears in the stems and veins and is an indicator that the taste is going or gone. Yuk.

Peas are dried up and finished for the season. It is July 29th. Clean up goes on all summer, fall, winter, spring and then repeat.

Grams checks out the summer squash while taking a much deserved break. More than one variety of yellow crookneck squash in this pile. They look different and have a different texture. They taste pretty much the same to me. I love them all!