Tuesday, October 1, 2019

Siamese twin dahlia?!


Recently from the flower garden... Where 'siamese twin' blooms are concerned, I think I might be the first to post such an oddity in the dahlia department. This Cafe au Lait variety looked like another big blossom until I made a closer inspection. After separating the petals, it revealed 2 individual sepals conjoined at the stem. Bizarre, but pretty cool as I've only been growing dahlias for a few years.


Paul Robeson and Cherokee Purple tomatoes, nashi pears

The temperatures are gradually lowering as the fall season progresses, but as long as there's a bit of sun every day, the tomatoes should continue ripening for another couple of weeks. I'm satisfied with our harvests this year (way too many cucumbers though), even if the pears suffered stink bug bites. The affected fruit have an ugly, bumpy surface and by the time you cut out the blemished areas, there's decidely less of it to eat. Italy's ag sector sustained serious damage from the brown marmorated stink bug - Halyomorpha halys - and there's talk of introducing a predatory wasp. How effective the wasps will be is what everyone is wondering, even if the predators might eventually do more harm to our ecosystem.

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