The kids love it! I can't keep them out of there. Yes Bam, my wife is pretty hot;) That's the only solution to birds that I've found. It's a pain to put up but well worth it. I did get a LSU purple fig planted in Feb. I cut it back and rooted 3 of the cuttings. Gave one to the Father in Law, one to my Dad and one more left for me so now I got 2 fig trees. I hope they are good. I've never had a fresh fig! Charles, most of them are in containers. I have 6 in raised beds. 5 Rabbiteyes and 1 Emerald. I've had the rest of my varieties start to ripen and have been able to taste all of them now. Took my wife out there today to taste test to see which ones we want to keep and which to let go. Unfortunately she likes all of them so now I have to make the tough decisions. Honestly the only SHB I don't like is Premadonna. Watery and tasteless! All the other ones are good in there own respect, some defiantly better than others. Yes Fruitnut, Sweetcrisp stole the show;) I took some more pics of the later ripening varieties and will post them soon along with my personal take on all the varieties I've grown. Looks like I'm going to keep more than I though I would.

We have a 6 qt Nuwave and love it. My favorite thing to make in it are steaks, believe it or not. They are like they are grilled on a gas grill (nothing as good as charcoal) and easy to have done to your perfect inside temp. As our grill season is very short here, I love being able to have steak the other 9 months out of the year without having to clean splatters all over the stove. My kids love fried ravioli and you can do homemade easily in the air fryer. Thaw frozen ravioli and bread with egg and breadcrumbs/parm and spritz with oil and cook in the AF until crispy. Wings are great in the AF too without the mess and babysitting of deep frying. I have a large Breville toaster oven with convection and a range with convection and the way an air fryer works is much different. The air speed is much greater which crisps things faster without over cooking. In fact, if you make burgers in one and toss on a slice of cheese without something on top to hold it down, the cheese will fly off the burger before it melts.

That is one beautiful clump of 'Queen Charlotte' dbarron! I have a pot of 'Pamina' that I plunked in the garden when I discovered it was not 'Honorine Jobert'. Wrong color for that spot, I should check on it. Here is the well named 'Robustissima'. Such a beast but I so appreciate the late blooms. You can see there are some plants going toward dormancy already here. We had drought for months but plenty of rain in the last month or so. I did not water at all.

Oh those shows...... That is a ridiculous whine. They are in season SOMEWHERE. And they were likely sourced from that somewhere. The magic of modern trade. I think things like that are food snobs looking for reasons to sniff and snark. I cannot watch shows like that anymore. Can we just appreciate that they made a turkey out of a strawberry without going all righteous foodie indignation? I can. I guess the "Expert" judges cannot. So sorry I did not grow and harvest the sugarcane for this cake myself. No, I did not mill my own wheat for it either......so sorry. No, I did not climb a tree in Madagascar to get the vanilla.......sorry, I am useless and cant cook.....The eggs? No, I cannot tell you the maiden name of the chicken that laid them......and I did not churn the butter either.....