August is here and Victoria came back from camp ready to assist in the garden! You were missed! The kids helped me sort a basket of produce into “botanical” fruit and vegetable piles.What’s the difference? The basic answer is that fruit is the seed-bearing part that forms from the ovary of a flowering plant, and vegetables are the other plant parts such as roots, stems and leaves. Read this link for more information.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/25/difference-fruit-vegetable_n_7664902.html
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| Ugly fruits and veggies taste GREAT! |
Yes, corn kernels are technically a fruit as are the tomato, beans, cucumber, peppers, pumpkin, and squash in our garden. Technically, broccoli, lettuce, spinach, beets, carrots and potatoes areexamples of vegetables in our garden. From a culinary perspective, we tend to name our fruits and veggies by their sweet or savory flavor and how we use them in a dish. Fruit or vegetable? Sure makes no difference to me. They all taste great at this time of the year in the peak of their freshness!
Do you know what else tastes great this time of year? HONEY! Our friend and beekeeper, A.J. Moses stopped out to check on the bees and brought over a frame for us to observe. We also found some spoons and used them to pull back a corner of the beeswax and get a taste of fresh honey!
Other observations on this day included our friendly green tree frog who seems to enjoy hanging out on the corn leaves instead trees, the emergence of squash vine bug nymphs on our zucchini and cucumber leaf troubles which may be caused by cucurbit anthracnose, a fungal disease.
Here are links to more information.
http://www.extension.umn.edu/garden/insects/find/squash-bugs/
http://www.extension.umn.edu/garden/yard-garden/vegetables/diseases-of-cucurbits/anthracnose/Thanks to teachers Tammy and Gina and all of the helpful kids who worked hard today!
--contributed by Kathy Luoma, Master Gardener
