2025 07 31 - 1st corn for 2025

1st corn, it is a little small but good.

I could wait a few days on the corn but I have more than we will eat even if we stay home which we are hoping not to. This came from one planting that should have been ready two weeks ago and another planting that should have been ready last week.

Once the corn is ready, I will be eating it when we are home ... a half dozen ears a meal, one or two meals a day. With lots of butter even though it wouldn't need it.

Bunnies (or something) is still getting in my fence and ate the kohlrabi. I don't think it is coming back this time, I think they finally killed it. Now that it is gone, they came back the next night and ate most of the remaining brussels sprouts. Those had gotten pretty big.

Three times in the last two days I have come out to the garden and there have been birds under my netting. One time I had to take then netting off so the bird could get out. The other times they flew away on their own. Hopefully that is not something they remember from one year to the next. I did pick about a dozen berries, mostly from one plant. And there are still a few dozen left that are not ripe.

I'll start clipping the corn stalks as I pick the corn, some of them have a 2nd ear so we will see if they grow or if the stalk is done before cutting those. Keeping the compost pile full this year.

Once there is gaps in the corn rows I will start planting beans or more sunflowers.

One of my sunflowers is blooming, others should be shortly. Not sure how I need to cover my seeds so they are not transplanted. Both the first plantings of corn and sunflowers had a lot of transplants. Maybe my fence was not up yet.

Monarch caterpillar, out of focus.

And I have also seen a couple of butterflies in my yard. Not many, but they are still around.

Also saw that there is a milkweed by my blue berries so now they are growing in three places. If only I could get flowers to grow also.

Looking at the numbers, the monarch count was the lowest in 25 years last year and the west coast area had a drop of almost 95% from the prior year. So maybe finding one is a high percentage of the total population.