u/GreenSalsa96

Hopefully, I have fruit in 3-4 years. Planted 3ft apart.

Zone 8a.

My wife really does a great job making our pool a place to hang out during the summer. While I do the vegetables, she handles the pollinator "buffet".

That is a quarter for scale. Zone 8a.

Apache Blackberries. Thornless.

2 quarts of berries made just over 10 pints.

Sending to my daughters.

On a whim, I threw in a couple of heads of garlic in the ground last October.

I am very impressed with how well they grew, how well they integrate with other plants, and how little effort they took to harvest.

I'm definitely going to scale up this fall and plant a 30" x 19' bed of them in October!

Just throwing in some realism showing progression over a lifetime working career.

I currently support a team of 27 people, in six sites, in five states, and four timezones.

Just for record, I make NO MORE THAN 2x the lowest paid member of my team.

I know some people will look at the current salary and suggest this is all luck (and I acknowledge that luck plays a part), but it overlooks the long steady progression that got me here. To get here, I probably spent 8+ years away from my family, living in some fairly austere conditions, staying out of trouble with the law, and drug free.

This is my working career from a 17 year old living on a farm with dirt floors, to washing dishes to an Army career (Enlisted and Warrant Officer) to teaching a technical course, to working as a Program Manager and now looking at transitioning to a semi retirement in 2030 (depending on how markets and my retirement accounts look).

My data is arranged by year, how many years I have been working, my age, years in the role, the role I am / did work in, and salary (from SSA).

I will leave it up for 48-72 hours.

Tragedy overseas, but if true, I'm really proud of the SM who jumped in to save his battle buddy.

Hoping the families take a small measure of comfort in knowing that when the chips were down--everyone jumped in (literally and figuratively).

I still have 5 gallons frozen from last year. I am thinking of shifting breakfast over to smoothies and making some jams and syrup with my kids this weekend to make room for this years harvest!

It's smaller on the outside!

I have been thinking about trying a small batch of berry jam and using either a small amount of a ghost pepper or 3-4 chili peppers to bring some "spice" to the jam.

Has anyone done this in the past? Recipe to share?

Pictures are just to show what I am working with.

Is it just me, or are the return rates absolutely crazy this past year?

Love waking up outside and grabbing fresh berries for my lunch!

This is my third year of growing blackberries and strawberries together in the same bed.

On the second half of the bed, I just planted Spinach (on the north side, closest to the viewer).

Do these look ready to pull? I pulled six out, and they look good! Can they / should they wait?

Zone 8a.

I also learned the leaves are awesome in a stir fry!

I've been watching this nest for a couple of weeks. They are set up next to our garden. I openly encourage birds to nest nearby because they eat their weight in insects!

Plus, Cardinals are the State Bird!