It has been a busy time here at Exotic Gardening Farms over the past few days. I have been canning more food as it comes on. I have frozen sugar snap peas, canned spinach and strawberries. My first picking of strawberries today came to five and a quarter pounds of fruit. The plants will continue to produce berries for several more weeks so there is much more to come.

We have been working in the garden trying to get rid of the creeping Charlie that wants to take over and laying paths. I cannot wait until all the pathways are laid so there are nice places to walk. The weed cloth simply became covered in weeds in too short of a time plus our ground is rocky so walking on it was difficult.

The aristolochia vine I planted when we moved in has not done much. It did bloom once, has grown a lot but there were no butterflies laying eggs on it until this year. I went out the other day to find close to fifty pipevine swallowtail caterpillars eating my plant. I am thrilled.

Tonight my epiphyllum oxypetalum has finally bloomed for the first time since I got it which was back in 1998. It has two beautiful, fragrant blooms. See the photo above.
Sheri

Sometimes nature sure suprises us. Today, as I was cutting dill for our salad, I noticed some caterpillars. I came inside to research and grab the camera. The caterpillars will be black swallowtails eventually. Needless to say I won’t be harvesting from that dill patch anymore until they are gone, that is, if anything is left then.

 I also wanted to share some photos from my garden with you.

 Sheri