Thru My Garden Gate

This is Max - our alpha male

That's not a rock.

My garden is in the high desert of Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Mornings here are amazing - cool and sunny.  Perfect for our outdoor pets - desert box turtles.  Yes, I write their names or initials on with nail polish (Sally Hansen hard as nails seems to work best).  We have quite a tribe now:  Max, Tiny, and Tiny Too are the males - identifiable by red eyes.
Our females are Apple, Betsy, and Cat.  After the boys we went with the abc's and its easier to just paint a letter on their shells.  We also have babies:  E, D, F, G, H.  Haven't seen 'I' this year yet.  The granddaughters get to do the naming and we'll be having a naming activity in June.  They (the turtles not the granddaughters) love to eat bugs (even cockroaches), cat food, watermelon rinds, and strawberry tops. We've all learned to pick them up carefully and hold them at arm's length for a minute:  peeing seems to be a defensive mechanism and it's no fun being peed  on by a turtle (pretty stinky).

Today's Garden Tip is about growing cilantro.  Here in our warm climate cilantro bolts (grows too fast and flowers) quickly.  So I bought a couple of small plants and started seeds.  I'll harvest continually if I keep planting seeds every week or two.