It's been a while since i've updated! Life has been a little wild recently, but I think i'm finding a new rythym.
Garden Recap
My garden this summer was not the greatest, unfortuntly. My tomatos and peppers were ravaged all summer by leaf-footed bugs and tomato hornworms (the eggplant powered through, though), and my zucchini plants did not produce one single zucchini?? That shocked me. Last year i was drowning in them! And i specifically grew slicer tomatos, asian eggplant, and the zucchini to make ratatouille. :( Was looking forward to homegrown ratatouille. oh well. Hopefully next year will be better.
On the plus side, when we first moved into our house in winter 2024, I sprinkled native wildflower seed in my garden beds to overwinter. Usually the first growing season they don't produce flowers, so I didn't see any flowers last year; but this year I had tons of black-eyed susans, Lanced-leaved Coreopsis, and Echinacea Purperea. I also found a lot of Purple Love Grass growing naturally in my yard as well!
My peach and mulberry trees are doing amazingly! They've more than doubled what they were when I bought them (I got a set of 3 trees of each that were arounf 12-18 inches off of etsy) and the peaches flowered this year, but I did pinch the buds off because they're just a little too small for fruit right now. I did leave one persimmon on my Fuyu that I got even though I shouldn't have, but when I tried it, it was soo good. I've never tried asian persimmons before, just wild american ones, and I get the hype. It was so sweet and juicy, with a distinctly honey-like flavor.
I learned about an interesting new bug this year! In the pics above, you see the freaky red thorn-like things coming out of the leaves? That's the Grape Tube Gallmaker (Ampelomyia Viticola), they create galls on New World grape vines. The entire vine looked like this! Very cool! It almost looks like the leaves are covered in piercings or they have a interesting hairstyle.
Projects
I've been working on a lot of crochet projects, most recently on some blankets for my sisters and mom as a holiday gift. I have made a few things for myself! I made a sweater, a sweater vest, and a beret.