the_word_nerd

Oop, I guess I did out myself there, haha. Well now you know who I am IRL :). I really love your fragrances! They are so special. Excited for more Ramble On.

Today’s harvest: two enormous cucumbers, a bunch of green beans, some greens (arugula, mustard, and thinned sprouts of radish, beet, and spinach), and beets.

Quick pickled cucumber slices. Too much turmeric in this batch, but they’ll still be yummy.

Mayapples in August. My husband foraged them and then I ripened them indoors to collect the seeds.

I am not good at drawing, but everyone can recognize the universal sign for “poison,” right?! The seeds, leaves, stems, and roots of this plant are poisonous. But the fruit tastes like candy. Go figure! Anyway we’ll plant these seeds this week in the shade of some mature trees in our side yard.

Feeling under the weather, so focused on indoor projects today.

Pickling cucumbers and collecting Mayapple seeds to plant in the shady side yard.

#gardening #zone6b #pickles #nativeplants

Just stopping by to say this fragrance is a sexy retro summertime road trip dream! I got a small sample and it turned out my husband — who’s the big Pachouli fan in our household — really liked it. I just grabbed the full size for him. Thank you for making it!

Chamomile

Green beans

More shallots and onions for the drying rack. Some larger. Some still not.

Fall seedlings popping up: beet, spinach, radish, and chard.

Today’s garden snaps.

#gardening #zone6b #raisedbedgarden #vegetablegarden

What an asshole.

Look at these radishes popping up already just three days later. Man, plants really know what they’re doing.

#gardening #zone6b

A fox squirrel named Dr. Temperance Brennan eating a nut of an evening in the dog days of summer.

Bonus: I got to hang out with my squirrel friend, who is as sweet as ever!

#gardening #zone6b #squirrel

Safe, cucumber, catnip, and green beans in a colander.

Bingo beans with bright pink streaks. As these beans mature they turn fuchsia.

A handful of navy beans that dried on the bushes and are ready for more drying on the rack.

10 baby butternut squashes on a trellis.

Relaxing evening harvest including a hoard of green beans, a couple cukes to pickle, sage, and catnip.

Pink streaks starting to show on Bingo beans, and a few Navy beans ready for the drying rack.

Plus, you can see all 10 of my baby butternuts in this trellis pic 😍.

#gardening #zone6b

Seeds I planted today: beets, carrots, radishes, peas, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, chard, spinach, kale, chijimisai.

Aerial view of the back yard. Front, left to right: potatoes, bush beans, greens, roots, tomatoes, cucumbers, more roots, more greens, and herbs. Behind the hammock you can see the pole beans have filled up the trellis, and the bed in front has more bush beans and herbs. The bed you can’t see behind the trellis has bush beans, zucchini, eggplants, brassicas. Round bed back right is tomato surrounded by roots, bush beans, and herbs.

Doing some fall planting today. Another round of cool season greens, roots, and brassicas.

I hope it’s not way too early, and that the cooler overnight temps continue.

Plus an aerial view from a few days ago — lots of things happening!

#gardening #zone6b #raisedbedgarden #vegetablegarden

I wish they grew larger, but they are certainly tasty!

Carrots, green beans, and beets.

Garlic

Onions and shallots.

Carrots, beets, basil, and green beans fresh from the garden in a colander.

Today’s harvest included the last of the dinky rainbow carrots, (clearing out for fall planting), beets, orange carrots, herbs, green beans. Plus some nice-sized shallots and onions. And my spring-planted garlic is cured, trimmed, and indoors ready to use.

#gardening #zone6b #vegetablegarden

This only adds one job to the report, dummy. Won’t even move the needle!

I sure will! I’m really excited about them.

Alice’s Dream beefsteak from Baker Creek. Will be yellow with red streaks.

Bonnie Best from Baker Creek. Will be red.

Pink Bumble Bee from Baker Creek. Striped red and pink cherry variety for snacking. In prior years I’ve had great luck with saved seeds from the little Sunset ones they sell at the grocery store, but trying something new this year.

San Marzano. Will be red. Seed saved from fruit. Originally purchased as a plant from Gurney’s in 2022, and gone saved seed still germinated really well.

Rainy morning pruning = Tomato appreciation post.

I was late in bringing these outside because they were slow to start in coco coir starting medium. But they are coming right along! 3/4 of the varieties are store bought seed, which I’m trying for the first time.

#gardening #zone6b #tomatoes

Wore Gris Charnel to the office today. I think I like it more in the warm weather than I did in the cold.

#sotd #perfumesky #fragrancesky

NYC Mass Shooting Was Nearly Impossible to Prevent, Experts Say

Holy shit, they did it. They wrote the headline.

Bottom few leaves of this cucumber are ok, but the rest are very not.

Sad droopy cucumber plant.

You can see in the left of this photo that the cucumber next to it is doing well.

Close-up on leaves and fruit dropping.

Any cucumber experts out there?

I thought this plant was dehydrated ~3 days ago but I’ve watered and we had heavy rain storms, and its leaves are even more floppy and lifeless.

Is it done for? Very curious.

The one next to it is doing well.

#gardening #zone6b #cucumber

I will keep you posted! This is my first year.

Garbanzo beans

Carrot harvest in the background. Very oddly-shaped, four-legged carrot in the foreground.

Garlic, onions, and shallots on a soil sifter / drying rack.

Dried herbs in jars: basil, cilantro, catnip, dill, mint, oregano, parsley, rosemary, sage, and thyme.

Garbanzo beans are coming along.

Harvested lots of carrots today, including a freaky four-legged one.

Using my soil sifter as a garlic & onion drying stand.

And the air dry herb stash is looking good.

#gardening #zone6b #vegetablegarden #herbs

Thanks! No fruit trees here, and I don’t know much about them. Growing up my dad had a tart cherry tree and he’d make tons of preserves every year, it seemed fairly low maintenance. But some fruits need multiple trees to pollinate properly and I don’t have much space or knowledge for that yet.

A good batch of viable, maturing squashes. And just as many that didn’t make it.

The vibes will outgrow the trellis sometime soon.

#gardening #zone6b #squash

Lego petite sunny bouquet in a vase.

Lego petite sunny bouquet in a vase.

The new-ish “petite sunny bouquet” from Lego has yarrow, fern, billy buttons, daisy, bluebell, gerbera daisy, tulip, and peony.

Very cute.

#lego #bloomsky #bloomscroll

Absolutely!

Sounds great! I’ve got to wait for a few more since they are smaller “finger fruit” variety, but I’m looking forward to cooking them up in a pan with just a little olive oil.

Today’s harvest washed and laid out on a kitchen towel: carrots, beets, green beans, cucumbers, and parsnips.

The parsnips are very long and thin. Like three feet long.

Bingo and ayocote morado pole beans.

Eggplant blossom.

Nice harvest today: carrots, beets, green beans, cucumbers, and super-long weird parsnips.

Suddenly spotting a lot of pole beans.

And one eggplant flower has blossomed. I think they’re so pretty!

#gardening #zone6b #raisedbedgarden #vegetablegarden

Lucky boy.

Updates on the evolving squash-uation.

#gardening #zone6b #squash

Update: I tried Dead Writers, Fitzgerald, Beautiful Fool, and Lady Paris this week. Dead Writers might replace Georgiana in my top 3.

A colander full of freshly harvested herbs.

Lunchtime harvest, Simon & Garfunkel edition.

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. Plus mint, basil, oregano, and catnip.

#gardening #zone6b #herbs

On the right, the male flowers in bloom. Upper left you can see a few female flowers that are closing up.

Wee bee friend on one of the male flowers.

Right now, all the male flowers are clumped together near the bottom of the plant. There are some female flowers near the top that appear to have bloomed and now closed up. There is an industrious bee trying to help, but I’m not sure it got back and forth to everything in time.