Watermelon, Senna, Red Yucca

 One of the watermelons finally was ripe enough to pick. I read that when the tendril nearest the node dries out, the plant is done feeding the fruit. It's been huge for weeks. Turns out it's as big as a head.

The flesh was ok. Not some glorious fruit that defies corporate watermelon oligarchs. But it's mine, and that counts for something. It's a little less flesh, huge seeds.

I had removed a hesperaloe parviflora, Red Yucca, to make way for something else out front. I combined the whole plant in one big pot, that then started wilting and falling over. So I tied the whole thing up, it looked like a wave or an awesome hair cut. Fortunately no pictures or complaints from the neighbors. Yesterday, I divided them and put them in the ground in the gravel driveway.

The soil was so compacted and hard I could barely dig holes for them. Desert soil has a challenge called caliche. It's a layer of naturally forming concrete basically. I've never run into it before in personal digging. Definitely did this time. I wonder if the plants will have drainage issues, root rot or something.

I'm not sure I'm crazy about this location, but it's ok, adds some green, and it's easy easy to remove later. Again these have like bulbs for roots. I googled but found no results for edibility.

I found a desert Senna with seed pods a while back and decided to collect and plant. Yesterday they bloomed.

I collected the seeds at Apache Wash, the trailhead where my oldest rides mountain bikes with his team. (Did you know mountain biking is a sanctioned high school sport now days? It's a wonderful time to be alive!) I actually like this desert weed. It turned out great.

Inspired by Hoover over at Piece of Eden, I fixed up my hummingbird feeder, cleaned it, refilled it, moved it.

This is the view from the kitchen window. Hopefully we'll get some hummingbirds soon!

Prickly Pear Juice

This weekend the boys and I picked 5 gallons of prickly pears, many of them from this cactus.

Being careful not to get the tiny spines (glochids) in our hands, we tried a number of things.  First we torched some to burn off the spines. Then cut them open to taste. They didn't taste very good. Not horrible, but disappointing. A mix of kiwi, melon, grapefruit flavor. We juiced them by squishing them, then boiled the juice for 90 minutes. Strained it a dozen times I think. Added sugar. Eventually I admitted defeat the next day and poured it down the drain.

The corn is growing fast! 

My air layering experiment is ready to go. You may be able to see some roots there in the plastic.

Planted.

I potted some octopus agaves, agave vilmoriniana and sedum morganianum (burro's tail)

Agave seedlings. In the left tray is agave parryi from seeds I collected by the Sunrise Library. The middle round pot has agave geminiflora seed I collected near Wal-Mart.

Taking a walk Sunday I saw this giant toad (unfortunately I think he was mortally injured, maybe run over?)

This morning, I pulled out this red yucca (hesperaloe parviflora) from the front yard and attempted to pot it. I filled this pot completely. I didn't realize red yucca is a tuber, like onions almost. I'm pretty sure this isn't an ideal way to pot it, we'll see how it goes. I replaced it with firecracker plant, russelia equisetiformis. I'll take a picture later.

 And finally, I consulted with an arborist, Erik Wilson, about my Desert Museum Palo Verde and Mesquite trees. He recommended a tree trimming company, Trees For Needs. They came out this morning and really did a great job. I wish I had a good "before" picture.