Weed Day

Ragweed

Carolina Lovegrass

Lamb's Quarters

St. Andrew's Cross

Now that the tomatoes and cucumbers are coming on, our family is spending more time at the garden on our property in Hocking County.  Or at least trying to!  And while the tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, and watermelon are doing reasonably well, the weeds in the garden are doing amazingly well.  A tribute to plenty of rain and cooler temperatures.

So I figured I should add some of the garden weeds to the One Thousand Flowers project, afterall, weeds are people too!  The Ragweed and Lamb's Quarters are really starting to become established in the garden. It was no time before my son and daughter were having allergy fits.  They tried to blame my dad's dog for their sneezes and snots because it didn't really kick in until after they went inside the grandparent's house for restroom pit stop.  I'm sure the ragweed was more likely to blame than Julie the dog however.  Julie is the sweetest dog, although rather odd to look at (sorry I didn't think to take her picture).  She is an apparent cross between a border collie and a basset hound.  Border collie appearance on a basset hound frame!

Had a weedy grass in the garden that I did not remember seeing in years past, perhaps because in year's past we did a better job of keeping the weeds knocked down than we have done this year.  The grass is Carolina Lovegrass.  Sort of a handsome grass, as far as weedy grasses are concerned.

My son and I did cruise the rest of the property a little and came across a subtle beauty, hiding in among the grasses out in the fields.  St. Andrews Cross is a type of Hypericum (St. Johnswort).  I find the petal arrangement very interesting, sort of in an X pattern, a pattern one does not see in nature very often.

Our visit to the garden ended with a surprise visit from a cousin of mine.  Kenny Minehart and his wife Rose stopped by to visit my parents.  I had not seen Kenny and Rose since the early 90's when we lived out on our family property (where the garden is) and they lived on the next ridge over.  It was nice to get to visit with the long lost cousins.

After Weed Day, the official count for the One Thousand Flower project stands at 485 species, although I still have some identification work to do.  I suspect the final count will land somewhere around 600 species by the time all is said and done.  A frustration I am having is how to get the oaks included in the count.  I missed the flowering season for them, working from the idea that it would be more helpful to get them in fruit with the acorns anyways.  I am now finding the acorns are up in the higher reaches of the trees, out of camera zoom distance.  I think my best chance is going to simply be to photograph the acorns as they fall to the ground and take accompanying photos of leaves and buds of the tree from which the acorn fell.  We'll see how it goes!