Front legs wound up, they spring into action -grabbing a yellowjacket. But the bugger fights back with jaws or stinger and it happens to escape. I watch the mantis tend to the wound with its mouth.
When I moved the studio from storage I found my old gardening bag. In it were these metal tags. I had an idea when I was in NM that I would tag my vegetables, writing in grease pencil the name and planting date. Kind of dorky, but then useful because I tend to forget these things. I tagged what I could remember this time around.
Something I learned in my first three weeks at a community garden: don't take things from derelict plots like the one above -even after the eviction date.
I took two of these concrete things for washing my feet of mud (water flows right through don't you know) at the entrance to my plot. Upon my return, they were gone -back at the other plot. I waited a week, figuring the person for still packing up, feeling a little foolish for thinking some one who never actually gardened a plot wouldn't be around for picking up some cheap concrete things. Well, I was wrong again. There I go figuring again, this time after another week, I went and dug out of the weeds another two of these pavers and placed them at the entrance to my plot. Yet, upon my return they were once again removed and put back at the other plot.
Here at the National Recreation Area, we benefit from federal spending. In this case, it comes in the form of a picnic table and bbq grill. Pork -yes sir. Beef too, and then there were the mussels and corn. The government dole never tasted so good. 
These are the first and probably only brandywines I'll harvest this year. The cycle of drought and watering led to some cleft with heft. I made a tomato salad -oil and vinegar, salt and pepper. I cut out the coarse ravines. Eaten at room temperature.
It's odd when radar imagery and actual experience collide. Two thin lines of "activity" were merging on radar, yesterday, over Brooklyn. On the way to the studio, we were below these two merging lines. I was driving, so it was hard to get a photo. The clouds here were traveling longitudinally. It rained underneath, briefly.
These are the early brandywines. There's a third, about ripe, to the right of the little green one.
In fact, its been a lousy year for the vegetable garden in pots. These purple podded-beans were a complete failure -I think this is maybe one of five beans we've gotten from this container. Called Bush Bean -Purple Queen, Phaseolus vulgaris, described on the Botanical Interests (TM) packet as an heirloom with beautiful deep purple pods, a compact plant that is a good container vegetable to be harvested in 55 days. We planted these about May 20th or so. They continued to grow to at least double the height of the blue lake beans, falling over, producing little flowers that never seemed to form pods. What they did produce were yellow leaves -ugly and unproductive. The common Blue Lake bush beans have done so well over the last few years in the pots that I must've gotten complacent. I am willing to figure it a failure on my part -something missed, uncared for. Inoculant? Diseased soil? 
This is what they looked like before I pulled them out a minute later. I cleaned out the container and planted new bush bean seeds I got from J&L (a steal so late in the season). We'll see how that goes. I love fresh green beans, and in these little containers, 24 x 10 x 10 inches, I have been able to reap two crops of green beans (Blue Lake Bush) from the same plants over the last few summers.
This is my total harvest this year. The green ones are from the three blue lake plants that sprouted -my seeds were passed their prime and didn't fare as well as past years either. Wah wah waaahh.
This volunteer tomato seems all the more healthy for being in the ground. Maybe it's that I am tired of container vegetables altogether. I wasn't going to plant any vegetables this year, yet I did. Now that I have the beach farm, I think that's it -except for the herbs which I always want to have close to the kitchen.
It's flower is not all white, but I am guessing a cultivar of Magnolia virginiana, or Sweetbay Magnolia. It grows in Prospect Park, at the bottom of the slope, just north of the lake, road side. The hard-edged thing is a large metal container (as in truck) that has been gracing the park for a few weeks.
I'm not ashamed to name the Asters as some of my favorite plants in the garden. They do most of what I ask, including surviving overcrowding, heat, wind, drought, and massive infestations of bugs that help to mottle and yellow their leaves all while continuing to put out new growth in preparation for fall flowering.
This is Aster 'Alma Potschke.' It survived multiple transplants last year, then a clobbering by a baseball bat, and this year a garbage pail toss. Now the pests.
These are the critters. A quick glance might yield you aphids, but one really must get close for these. Their backs look somewhat sculpted and lacy, with stripes. The nymphs, which are everywhere, do not have this feature and are clearly spiny. My quick internet search yields the Chrysanthemum Lacebug or Corythucha marmorata as a possibility, in the family Tingidae or Lace Bugs. It seems these pests are named for the nursery trade plant group they prefer to infest. But they aren't touching my mums, and seem to love asters.
I cut the pipe to fit and placed all the fittings where I wanted them. At first, I didn't glue anything so that I could change things if needed.
I had an old timer, but it didn't work any longer -forcing me to buy a new one. Lowe's had this timer by a company called 'Orbit,' costing about 30 bucks. It looked cheap and crappy, but was very easy to program -in fact, it didn't come with instructions of any kind. Mechanically, it may be cheap and crappy, but so far so good. I was pleased that it came with a metal screen at the inlet to filter out those chunks of rust that are sure to make their way through to my system.
The whole setup is rather Frankensteinian. Scavenged flexible clear pipe is only 1/2-inch interior diameter with scavenged hose connectors having 3/4-inch connections. I needed to reduce my 1-inch PVC to said 3/4-inch connection. At my corner store I was able to find a 1-inch PVC sleeve-to 1-inch 'male' threaded, a 1-inch 'female' threaded iron pipe reducing to a 3/4-inch female threaded, and to connect it all a double-ended 3/4-inch male threaded galvanized iron! Oy.
I buried the pipes, never gluing the top fittings because I wasn't sure if I would want to replace or reuse those pieces in the future. The water flows gently, which I wanted, so as not to disturb the soil or spray water all over the place. In other words -it works.
This is how most folks at the garden (or any garden) like to water their plants. They probably have a trigger spray nozzle or some such device. I cannot explain the feeling given by watering plants this way, but it is definite and possibly trance inducing. Is it the sense of control over one of the most important elements in all of life? Is it the power of 'making it rain?' Or is it something more sensual -the wetness, the mist, its cooling effect? Could be its sound, the splish and splash, but what of the pfffffft? I cannot say. No matter, I make it rain with electronic valves and gravity, near the ground and at regular intervals. 
We woke up city farmer early -that's about 6:30 am for you civilization types. Hopped in the van and hit Ocean Pkwy -sun still behind trees.
We planted up the remaining starts. Crammed in as many as I thought worth losing to overcrowding. The rest we happily donated to a summer camp's plot (A12 -my 1st choice!) because I simply cannot toss unused starts. I scavenged this old and warped picket fence from a plot owner about to be evicted. We needed to frame the corner as many people enter the larger garden from this corner. The stakes are for the tomatoes that I delude myself into thinking will get tall -no one's tomatoes get tall here -I think it's the wind. Besides, it's friggin late July! Anyhow, those stakes I'm going to cut down for the sake of visuals alone, then rig up some sort of support system. On the other hand -tall tomato plants could be a goal for next year.
We went with a trench flood system for irrigation. Our work was hasty and I think the trenches show it -too deep in spots. That said, it works for this years short season.
Thar she blows. Neighboring plot is full of weeds and old, stunted brassicas -alluring to those white cabbage moths fluttering about. Thinking of getting some netting for the broccoli -the only plant I'm giving half a chance of producing the way it should.
The Butterfly Weed, Asclepias tuberosa, has bloomed again. Nice. You can see the first flush's seed pod forming on the top left. Incidentally, I've never seen a butterfly anywhere near this plant.
With the passing of these flowers and the last of the ordinary daylily, there will be no more orange in the garden. We move strictly into the pink, yellow, and blue (wait -scarlet, fuschia, salmon, burgundy, white and magenta) of the late summer and autumn front yard garden. I still have a lily yet to bloom -and I do not recall its color (must hit last year's blog entries).
That's the moon.
Quasi-mammatus.
Fast lightning.
Not so fast.