Some luffa pics -

Sheets drying

Four gourds

Luffa growing on the fence - I had to add some extra support here, the weight of the gourds was pulling the fence down!

_aesthetic

I recently harvested and processed my luffa! Four good gourds, plus a few smaller ones that’ll just be compost. All but one were very green still, so I roasted them in the oven at 250F for an hour to make the skins workable, squeezed out the pulp and seeds, cut them into a flat sheet, and then soaked in a bleach solution overnight to kill any mold/bacteria before leaving them to dry. I’m excited to make some sponges!

I’ll be definitely be planting more next year, the super long vines are very fun, especially the one that grew along the top of my garden fence this year.

Harvested my sunflower heads this week! I probably waited a bit too long since they had worms and a bit of mold, but lesson learned for next time. I took all the seeds out, sorted out the bad ones, and I’m going to let them dry for a while longer in mesh bags before roasting and shelling or whatever.

Any advice on processing sunflowers?

My experimental Loofa plants are starting to produce! They were strange - sent out female flowers way early in the season, then a run of only males, and now finally I’m getting a mix.

I’d like to try making some biodegradable sponges out of them.

Physical anti-tamper, while important for this type of device, wouldn’t have helped for this particular attack. It’s an electromagnetic side channel, so they don’t even have to be touching the the thing to collect data.

It’s been cool and wet enough recently (thank goodness) that some self-seeded lettuce and arugula from the plants that bolted at the end of spring have sprouted - I had been missing the fresh greens!

I’ve also been enjoying seeing the joe-pye weed, goldenrod, and all the other summer wildflowers in full bloom!

Those wildflowers look divine, my goal for next year is to have a patch like that!

Here’s what I’ve got -

Sunflowers!

Tomatoes have been doing great, especially the cherry variety I’m growing

The vineborers got half my pumpkins but I’ve harvested a few good ones, as well as a healthy crop of butternut squash

Bonus brood of wild turkeys from my living room window, there have been quite a few families with cute little fluff balls in the yard recently

I’ve been playing the new Solium Infernum with a friend - the first playthrough I did not particularly enjoy (partially my fault for not playing the tutorial first) but once I learned the mechanics my second game was more fun. The UI is not very smooth to use and there are some mechanics I don’t like, but overall pretty good.

I also picked up Mindustry again last night - it’s an open source Factorio + Tower Defense + RTS that is rather addicting… The new campaign they added a couple years ago is better than the original too.

Thank you! The arch is my favorite part too

Tacked together some scrap wood to un-squash my squash arch - turns out 12 gauge wire fencing is not rigid enough to support full grown butternut squashes! I like how it looks with the wood, though.

You can see my sunflowers too in the right of the image, just starting to form their flowers. I’m hoping they’ll open in time for the visitors I have this weekend to see them.

The cucumbers are slowing down now but it’s the tomatoes’ turn to go absolutely wild. I bet I could start harvesting some of these squash and pumpkins soon as well.

Thank you! I’ll give this a try. It makes sense, I haven’t done any fertilizing since making this bed in the spring (compost/topsoil blend from a local supplier), and haven’t been the most consistent on watering…

Any idea what’s happening to my tomatoes? Pretty much every one I’ve picked so far has looked like this on the bottom

I’ve only gotten two so far, but here’s what I’ve been doing -

• coin the zucchini, salt, let sit for 20min and pat off the water
• dip pieces in flour, then egg, then a bread crumb, parmesan, and seasoning mixture Bake at 400, 10 minutes each side

After 10 I’d definitely be looking into breads and cakes, especially stuff that might freeze well

That’s a great idea, I’ll stick it in the fruit bowl!

The garden is struggling a bit in the heat (mostly I need to water more) but I’m still getting a lot of good stuff! Six cucumbers, a zucchini, and my first tomatoes of the season today!

Accidentally knocked off the green one, but it’ll probably ripen on the shelf

I’ll jump on the raspberry bandwagon - here’s the handful I got today off of the black raspberry bush by my shed - quite a few still ripening there as well!

I’ve got a lot of this in my yard from the previous owner. It leaves great dry flower heads over winter, provides great visual interest and homes for overwintering insects in the stalks

I’ve been loving all the milkweed in bloom I pass on my commute! Definitely want to plant a ton in my yard next year!

My first cucumbers are almost ready to pick, and I’ve been pollenating squash flowers like every other day.

Another angle on my garden featuring the prolific pumpkin vine and the sunflower patch -

My AC is struggling a bit to keep up with the heatwave in New England as well, but the garden and I are surviving!

Finally figured out how remove exif data and add an image, so here’s a picture of the garden! I hand pollenated my first butternut squash yesterday, and the cucumber plants are covered in flowers, several of which look like they might actually start turning into cucumbers! I’ve got some empty space that I want to figure out what to do with, I’m starting some more bell peppers and I think I might plant some more carrots. Overall very happy with how things are growing so far this year!

The raised beds with the arch trellis have cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, squash, basil, some brassicas (not doing too great), radish, and beets. The beds in the foreground have chickpeas and some empty space where I may add carrots. There is another bed off camera where I have more pumpkins and some sunflowers.