Desert Garden, June

when I first came here to the Mojave, I did not even consider a vegetable garden...and then I heard that people were doing it, so I began the Desert Garden Adventure...

this is its second year...

this morning I cut my first 6" zuchinni of the year...in this photo you can see another one growing, it is about 3" long now, and you can see the fire ants on the flower...fire ants LOVE squash flowers, and this makes for lots of adventures picking squash...their little bites are like fire, requiring a swift retreat to apply baking soda paste...

I also planted seeds from a small round melon I got at the Farmers' Market in Joshua Tree last year, and they are growing well and flowering...

also flowering are the watermelon plants... I was not going to grow watermelons this year because I do not seem to be very good at telling from thumping them when they are ripe....and then they came up by themselves from last year's compost, so I decided to water them and try again...the few that I did guess right about the ripeness were very delicious...

these watermelon flowers are tiny, less than an inch across, like cantaloupe, and like the round melons' flowers...and unlike the huge flowers on the yellow squash and zuchinni...