dkppunk

Cool looking neon skimmer that landed near my tomatoes. Not entirely sure where it came from as the nearest pool of water is pretty far and very shallow. Still fun to see and happy it stuck around for a photo shoot! 😊

This was the little guy from last week:

Update on the luffas I posted about: https://piefed.social/post/2094148

These plants grow fast. This is about a week’s worth of growth on two fruits. The luffas have gotten significantly larger.

I’m not going to update these frequently, just wanted to show the growth rate in case anyone is thinking of growing a luffa plant. They are so much fun!

Tried to catch the baby to move it out of my garden, but it crawled into the flower and showed me its little booty instead lol

Last year, a friend gave me a bunch of seeds that were going to be thrown away, mostly packaged for 2024. One of the packs was for luffas, a type of gourd that is commonly used as a sponge. I threw 2 in my Aerogarden to watch them sprout. I quickly learned it was too much plant for not enough space, so I moved one outside into a pot of dirt. It looked really sad for a while, I honestly thought it was going to die, but after the transplant shock wore off it started growing and producing. The inside luffa only produced 1 female flower and tons of male flowers. The outside luffa had a lot more female flowers, so I hand pollinated all of the female flowers with males from the inside plant. I ended up harvesting 10 sponges from my one outside plant.

This year’s plant is from a seed I harvested from last year’s luffa. I have another plant that I’ll be culling soon because the pot is too small and it’s only producing a few male flowers. But the one in the picture looks a lot happier and the luffas are growing larger every day.

I hand pollinated them because the bees go crazy for my luffa flowers and take all of the pollen with them. The large luffa was pollinated about 2 weeks ago and the smaller was pollinated last week. They are so much fun to grow, I highly recommend them if you have space. My luffas are grown in pots with an upside down tomato cage for it to vine up.

I think I want to try other kinds of gourds too because they are so fun and useful! Plus it helps support my local bee population :)

I actually love invertebrates and I’ve always considered pill bugs very cute. I fully understand how beneficial they are to gardens but O.M.G. they are destroying my plants this year. In 2 months, I’ve lost 5 luffa, 3 hot pepper, and 2 soybean plants to these adorable little fuckers. Thankfully, they are completely ignoring my Roma tomatoes.

I am going to get some diatomaceous earth today to sprinkle at the base of my plants and probably put down some sacrificial plant scraps to lure and feed them away from my vegetables. I don’t want them all to die, but I can’t get my plants to grow when they eat the stems.

Last year, I had an issue with hydrophobic soil, so this year I have put down straw to keep moisture in, which has allowed the pill bugs to run rampant throughout the garden. I do not overwater but I do live in a more arid climate, so things do get dry pretty quick and plants get thirsty. I almost prefer hydrophobic soil at this point.

I’ll be moving the surviving 3 soybeans and 2 pepper plants to a separate raised garden bed that the pill bugs cannot access, but UGH I never thought I’d be so frustrated with these cute guys!

Looking for any additional advice on getting rid of pill bugs/rollie pillow/sow bugs or whatever you want to call them. Such adorable and incredibly frustrating little fuckers!

Bees are such cuties :)

The bees really love my marigolds :)

Cute little Buttonhook Leafbeetle Jumping Spider that did not want to sit still for a picture. It kept moving around to the other side of the stem when I got close lol

It was super cute 💚

Little cutie that was hanging out on my lemon tree. It kept going to the other side of the leaf when I came around to get a picture lol

I found this little cutie in my garden the other day 💚

This is my bark lynx spider friend. I call her Bump because she looks like a tiny bump on my tomato cage :)