Backyard garden update

We have corn!!!  Well, I've actually found out some interesting things about corn during this whole growing process:

So... did you know that the top part or the "tassel" is actually the male part of the plant?  It contains the pollen that is needed to pollinate the female part of the plant.  The corn is actually twice the size now since this photo was taken below:

And as the plant matures, the silk starts to appear - this is the female part.  And this is the part that needs to be pollinated because did you know that EVERY single silk is actually ONE corn kernel??!!  I was totally baffled when I found that out!

 

And since we weren't sure if the bees and the wind was doing its job of pollination, we would pull off some tassels and do this sort of "fairy magic wand" thing on the silk.  No, not really. There's no real technique.  Just trying to transfer the pollen to EVERY SINGLE thing of silk!  

Hopefully something will work. Otherwise, we will have lots of corn cob with no kernel. Ha ha!  Here's a photo of some of that yellowish pollen on the leaf that was blown off by the wind:

So now the question is... when do we know that the corn is ready???  4 out of the 5 corn plants have husks that are sort of brown and only 1 corn plant that has a nice green color to its husks.  As I recall how corn looks in the supermarket, it is definitely not brown!  Hmm... guess we'll find out soon enough.

In the meantime, the zucchini plant is doing well.  Hopefully no critter will come by and eat that one zucchini that is growing nicely:

I actually hand-pollinated a pumpkin flower with another zucchini flower.  So will I get a "pumpkini"?  Doesn't that sound so yummy??!  Can't wait, can't wait! :-)

Not sure if this is a good spot for Charlie and Graham's pumpkin but I couldn't find any other spot.  Now that we have more in-ground soil, maybe I can add some of that to the ground.  The pumpkin plants have grown since this photo but still looking pretty stunt:

And my celery plant that was sitting in the water in the kitchen has finally rooted!  I've planted it outside and so far so good.  The roly pollies did attack it but thankfully it is still doing well:

Do you see the roly pollies?  I don't see how these things are actually helpful to your soil.  Seems that they eat everything!

 

We only have one surviving edamame plant right now and there are signs of edamame! So exciting!  The plant/bush is still so small though. I thought it would be bigger!  Bobby couldn't wait to tell me that something was actually munching on the leaves - the perfect "munch pattern" if there was one!

 

By the way, we have upgraded our wind spinner to a fancy one!  This one actually has a solar light so it glows at night and cascades a nice shadow on the shed's wall.  We're easy to entertain :-)

Charlie picked out a Loon, which is such a funny looking thing:

And Graham picked out a Butterfly, which I have at the front of the house.  Forgot to take a photo of that so maybe will post that next time instead.

The boys can't complain about not having enough balls to play with.  I can see 13 balls in just this photo alone!

And we are finding nerf bullets everywhere too.  Graham and Charlie have shot at least 3 over into the neighbor's yard already and that was just yesterday!  And somehow there is also a nerf bullet is in my shoe???

 Okay, back to the plants.  I replanted the strawberries in this upside down planter.  Hopefully we will actually be able to harvest some strawberries to eat:

I didn't know where else to hang it so I put a hook into the lemon tree.  Not sure if it gets enough sunlight.  Let's just wait and see what happens! 

And the figs are coming back!  So I didn't butcher that trees too much.  At least I can reach these figs now and hopefully this plant won't create all that mess and sticky goo like it did last year:

Maybe I can get Graham and Charlie into fig jam this year :-)

Loving this backyard!  So glad we have this space for the boys and me and Bobby while we are under the Stay at Home order.  The beaches and trails reopened last week but we haven't not ventured out yet.  I am still nervous about being out in public although the social distancing rules and wearing masks are still enforced.  Supposedly the trend of new cases are still increasing which makes me wonder about the decision by the city.  Oh well :-\  Stay safe and healthy everyone!