Tangled Branches: Cultivated

happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Ping

I'm still here. Beautiful fall weather has descended and I just don't feel like sitting in front of the computer. I haven't even done much photography lately; I'm content to just enjoy being outdoors before it gets too cold. And the vegetable garden is still producing. I've been drying peppers, freezing peppers, eating peppers, and making hot sauce. I like peppers. Here's a photo I did to accompany some given to my in-laws.

I asked the spouse if he could ID them for his family and he said no, hence the photo guide. 'Bulgarian Carrot' was new to me this year, but has become a favorite. Thick walls, hot, and early. A real winner.

Here's something I never saw before - a walking stick (insect).

I think the correct ID is Northern Walking Stick (Diapheromera femorata), but let me know if I'm wrong. Ordinarily, they should be in the woods eating oak leaves, so I'm not sure what attracted it to our front door.

Leaves are starting to drop and the deer are munching their way through the woods. You see things that were hidden before. These Euonymus americanus fruits for example.

E. americanus is apparently a deer favorite because we have many many wild plants of it in the woods and almost all of them get chewed off as soon as they attain any size. They overlooked enough of this one to let it produce a few fruit capsules.

I wish I knew more about mushrooms. We get a progression of them spring through fall. I keep thinking that I'm ignoring free delicious food through my ignorance at identification, but fear of making a mistake has kept me from sampling any. I need an expert to come here and guide me.

These were huge and obvious and the only ones of their kind I saw as I meadered through the woods yesterday. I have no idea what they are...

Labels: chiles, euonymus, insects, mushrooms, peppers

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Into the Woods

A few pictures from the central Virgnia woods last week. I was startled to see a Vaccinium in bloom. I believe this is a deerberry (Vaccinium stamineum) and it normally blooms in late April or early May. We have several wild Vacciniums in the woods and although I've seen berries on some of them I've never seen a deerberry berry.

I never posted an update on the Cranefly Orchid I discovered last winter. I did look for the flowers in July (or was it August?), and found instead the stump of a chewed-off flower stalk. But the leaves are sprouting again and there may be even more of them than I saw last year. Here's one emerging leaf:

With the recent rain, the mushrooms are sprouting like...oh never mind. I have no idea what any of these are, but some of them are attractive and that's fine because all I intend to do is look at them.

And lastly, this is the biggest Partridgeberry I've ever seen. Where are the partridges?

Labels: berries, mushrooms, orchids

Friday, September 19, 2008

This 'n' That, Mostly Wildflowers

This started out to be a belated Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day post for Tangled Branches South, but really there are only 2 cultivated plants newly blooming since last month's GBBD. I just don't have many perennials planted here yet and the annuals are looking tired. So the two newly blooming plants are a pale pale yellow Chrysanthemum and a purple Aster. I don't know the names of either one. And I had forgotten all about the Aster - the rabbits ate it down to nothing and I never even noticed that it had resprouted until I saw it blooming this morning.

The wildflowers make up for the lack of cultivated flowers. The meadow is gold and white and blue now with Goldenrod (Solidago spp.), Asters (Symphyotrichum spp. if you insist), Blue Mist Flower (Eupatorium coelestinum, now renamed to something I've forgotten), and Great Blue Lobelia (Lobelia syphilitica).

There's an interesting plant blooming in the woods now. I feel fairly sure that it's Aureolaria flava or Smooth Yellow False Foxglove, but ID is somewhat difficult owing to the fact that it's lost all its lower leaves. See the thin stems with yellow blobs at the end? That's it.

The flowers are quite pretty, but they don't last long and also the deer nibble on them.

There are several Aureolaria species in Virginia, but apparently all have some type of relationship with oak trees. All the online references I find call it parasitism, but this is a plant with green leaves so I'm perplexed by that. It is growing under some tall oak trees.

Something else that's been nibbled on is this mushroom.

I'd love to know whether this is edible, but my mushroom identification skills are nonexistant so I won't be trying it unless some expert shows up here, eats it while I watch, and stops by the next day in good health.

We haven't tried any of the homemade Inner Beauty sauce on mushrooms, but we've had it on pork chops and chicken wings. I wrote up my lab notes for Batch One over on my food blog. I didn't use any of these 'Yatsufusa' peppers in the sauce, but they probably would be a nice addition. This the prettiest pepper plant in the garden today.