A saute pan full of dark green Swiss chard leaves and chopped orange and pink stalks.

Bright Lights Swiss chard, mostly pink and orange. Delicious.🌱🌱🌱

A dark red orchid flower spike shoots up from the base of the plant.

Pale green orchid buds against a black plastic pot and strap-like leaves.

These guys, too.

A white orchid flower blooms against a pale hand.

This orchid doesn't usually bloom until January or February. My plants are so confused.🌱🌱🌱

An orange and black monarch butterfly rests on green calla leaves.

An orange and black monarch butterfly hangs from a milkweed twig.

Lots of these guys in the garden this week. We're getting the irrigation set up in the new greenhouse and one plant (the orchid cactus) has moved in. 🌱🌱🌱

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The brick and mortar location is employee-owned and goes by Curious Flora, if you're local.

A greenhouse, with carnivorous plants and artichokes gone to seed in the foreground.

And done.

I have pings in my kitchen,too!

A greenhouse made of black metal strips and plastic windows, missing the roof panels.

I am notorious for not taking process pictures of... well, any big project. That's usually my housemate's job. But here's where we are on the new greenhouse. 🌱🌱🌱

Forgot the 🌱🌱🌱

A white orchid with a yellow center blooms amid flat green leaves.

A couple of my spring-blooming orchids have decided that the weird, cold summer we just had was, in fact, winter, and they're blooming.
If I'm a bit quiet, it's because we're building a new greenhouse! Stay tuned....

So gleaming white in there!

A deep pink rose with a white center blooms amid green leaves.

Probably the last Double Delight rose of the season, looking and smelling amazing. 🌱🌱

The first monarch butterfly of this year's batch eclosed today, but he didn't stick around for a photo. Busy guy, had places to be....🌱🌱🌱

Pink water lilies and deep green lily pads float in a shallow reflecting pool.

Yesterday I got to go to Filoli for the first time. What a glorious day!🌱🌱🌱

I love watching these babies eat like it's their job.

A small green katydid and a golden brown honeybee share a red cosmos flower with a yellow center. Feathery green leaves fill the background.

And here are some friends from the work garden.🌱🌱🌱

I blanch and freeze mine. A quick sautee or steam keeps them from tasting too watery when thawed.

Two red ladybugs and a black and white swallowtail caterpillar forage on a yellow fennel blossom, with a rustic wooden fence in the background.

Here are some garden friends I saw this weekend. 🌱🌱🌱

Hahaha! Yeah, that's us.

The San Francisco Bay area. We live not far from an overwintering site.

I injured my back in May, so the spring crops got planted, but the garden has since become all but derelict. I have faith in the owls and neighborhood cats, and high hopes that I will have healed by next spring.

Gnawed beets sit atop a pile of purple, orange, and white carrots, all on a white napkin.

Well, looks like the rats got most of the beet crop as well as all the big tomatoes (we're still getting a steady drip of cherry tomatoes). The carrots seem unaffected. Don't know if it's because the carrots were planted deeper, or if rats aren't much for carrots.🌱🌱🌱

We usually let ours flower once a season. The bees love them and the little finches eat the seeds.

We've had the coldest summer since the 1960s here, and we're starting to get a little warmth, so things are ripening.

The household nickname for these units is "heckin chonkers".

F I N A L L Y
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My housemates won't eat them any more, either.

How about the Disgusting Creatures series by Elise Gravel? There's one on bats, cockroaches, flies,mosquitoes, etc.

A small pollen-dusted bee sleeps at the bottom of a brown and yellow sunflower.

The fog rolled in and it turned chilly so quickly that this bee took refuge in the sunflower it had been pollinating minutes before.🌱🌱🌱