Most of our monarchs were born on the same day, and lucky me that it happened to be a Saturday. All 14 have now been released into the world with much ceremony and fanfare.

Red milkweed beetle season is upon us, and Anneke has once again named several of the many milkweed beetles currently calling our yard home. They are really cute. She holds them and pets them and generally loves them to death, but we have quite a few to spare so I don’t worry about it.

Who says milkweed isn’t beautiful? I’m pretty sure this is Asclepias Speciosa, or showy milkweed, planted before I was good about making plant maps of my yard. (Brett Laidlaw: this was the one I was thinking of when I was mixed up on twitter; the leaves are so similar to asclepias syriaca, common milkweed.)

Our gooseberry bush is so laden with fruit that it’s sagging to the ground. Crossing my fingers we get these before the critters.

Currant pie is in my near future.

The bees and butterflies are both very happy about the now-blooming purple coneflowers.

So, is blanket flower native to MN or not? It’s definitely native to North America, but the Friends’ Plant Sale had it under “garden perennials” not “natives.” Well, I planted it anyway and it’s pretty! Blooming in its first year.

We got a nice haul from my sometimes-neglected volunteer-managed food shelf garden at Sabathani community garden this week.

Happy Independence Day!