First time here as well! Currently away on a trip and hoping that when I get back the sunflowers will be ready and the birds will have left some for me.

I was just visiting New Mexico, and I enjoyed seeing all the wild sunflowers growing everywhere in the desert.

This is great! And thanks for the link to stuff about Lenia - that was new to me and looks freaking awesome. Next programming side project for sure.

I've also been meaning to properly get into using Shadertoy, and I think this was a great introduction through an interesting use case.

My experimental Loofa plants are starting to produce! They were strange - sent out female flowers way early in the season, then a run of only males, and now finally I'm getting a mix.

I'd like to try making some biodegradable sponges out of them.

Physical anti-tamper, while important for this type of device, wouldn't have helped for this particular attack. It's an electromagnetic side channel, so they don't even have to be touching the the thing to collect data.

Thinking about propagating some wild black raspberry I have in my yard - when would you recommend cutting canes, and should I root them before planting out? I've seen people store dormant canes over winter and plant out in the spring, what are the advantages/disadvantages there?

It's been cool and wet enough recently (thank goodness) that some self-seeded lettuce and arugula from the plants that bolted at the end of spring have sprouted - I had been missing the fresh greens!

I've also been enjoying seeing the joe-pye weed, goldenrod, and all the other summer wildflowers in full bloom!

What other squash varieties are you growing? I have the pumpkins and butternut this year but I'm interested in trying some more next year.

Those wildflowers look divine, my goal for next year is to have a patch like that!

Here's what I've got -

Sunflowers!

Tomatoes have been doing great, especially the cherry variety I'm growing

The vineborers got half my pumpkins but I've harvested a few good ones, as well as a healthy crop of butternut squash

Bonus brood of wild turkeys from my living room window, there have been quite a few families with cute little fluff balls in the yard recently

I missed seeing the weekly thread yesterday, thanks for posting it! Those cucumbers look great - mine are pretty much done here on the opposite side of the country (maybe I underwatered in July) but my tomatoes are doing great. Sunflowers are so close to blooming, which is super exciting.

Here's the coolest thing I saw this week - a large caterpillar on my tomatoes studded with parasitic wasp eggs. What a crazy insect - it infects the host caterpillar with a virus that prevents it from molting!

Thank you! The arch is my favorite part too

Tacked together some scrap wood to un-squash my squash arch - turns out 12 gauge wire fencing is not rigid enough to support full grown butternut squashes! I like how it looks with the wood, though.

You can see my sunflowers too in the right of the image, just starting to form their flowers. I'm hoping they'll open in time for the visitors I have this weekend to see them.

The cucumbers are slowing down now but it's the tomatoes' turn to go absolutely wild. I bet I could start harvesting some of these squash and pumpkins soon as well.

Thank you! I'll give this a try. It makes sense, I haven't done any fertilizing since making this bed in the spring (compost/topsoil blend from a local supplier), and haven't been the most consistent on watering...