Beans Round 2 and really just a lot of whacking

Well, put a second round of beans in the community college plot on... uhh,.. lemme see.. 5/14? My class ended, I had a few days of work, I might be back in the limbo zone. Mysterious stuff. 

The beans were from M Garden, 2024, there were 15, and I was told they were Rattlesnake beans which was a little confusing to me because I always thought those were different colors. But the pods were green and purple stripy, and long, so? They looked to be in better shape than the group from last time honestly HAHA

When I planted them I tried a method to sort of... discourage ants from being in my plot So Much, and inadvertently discovered they were ALL OVER the newer stalks of sugar cane, farming aphids on the lower leaves. The new stalks were also kinda leaning over to my side, so I cut those down (don't worry there is still PLENTY of plant), and then I trimmed the pineapple guava hedge on the other side so it would stop whacking me when I try to get to the back of my area lol. If it's not clear, the space I'm working in is pretty tight. I saved some sticks, I'd like to make a little scrabbly area for juncos. I also scattered used coffee grounds to hopefully disrupt some of the ant pheromone trails and encourage them to move on out. Gonna try something with diluted essential oil + vinegar (+ water) to sort of elaborate on that bc honestly I don't care that much that they're there, I just want to be able to water without getting SWARMED. 

I went to a local botanical festival, listened to a few talks, chatted with people at the tables. Native plant people tend to be pretty tolerant of my brand of autism (i mean, obviously) and the people at the springs are super nice to me so its always cool to see them. There was another booth where they had all these seeds that you could touch and they indulged me by letting me guess plants by the latin name + seed shape which was wonderful. ALSO one booth was giving away native milkweed!! So now I have one!

I helped my mom take out a large New Zealand Flax (?) in the front yard and put in a little baby pomegranate tree. We put some of my grandparents ashes underneath and mixed it in with the soil. We're low-ceremony people so it was honestly very work-like and nice. The pomegranate is relevant because my grandpa was Armenian, and my grandma was very much a gardener and treasurer of plants. His family were genocide refugees and he was the last out of his siblings. Honestly, a lot of his childhood is mysterious to me. He was born in the US, but his sisters weren't, and I think they remembered more than he did? But I can't remember if I ever met them? Anyways. 

The next day I ended up at a middle school because someone I'm doing a favor is doing me a favor so I'm doing him a favor??? And that means I helped put in some plants to make up a native pollinator garden. The person running the garden was interesting, I honestly don't agree with all of her methods but she was cool with that and vice versa. I hope the native plants do well, I'm a little worried about them having hot wet roots.... 

At Home goings on in small pots: One of the Bladderpod seeds has sprouted:) it is young but strong. I have two very small Armenian cucumber seedlings, and I just put some dill seeds in a pot. Good luck to everybody.