Mariposa

Even though we have had some nice rains, the dry season is coming, so I am prepping for it.  This means whacking the hundreds or thousands of zinnia and cosmos that filled the space.  There are things planted among them and now's the time to expose them and get them acclimated to the intense sun that is coming.  The zinnias are still flowering, but better to get them on the compost pile while they are a little green.  As I cleared the space, I could see some design flaws so...I redesigned the whole garden just by putting in some paths.  I also could see that the rains were depositing silt, the rocks lining the paths will now catch it.  The soil has lots of clay in it so I am taking advantage of the timing, before it turns into cement, to dig down and turn it.  It actually will get so hard you need a bareta to dig a hole in February or March.  I keep adding organic material and getting air into it so maybe this year is will be better.  In fact I am thinking of using the zinnia plants as a mulch or else grinding them up and using that for mulch.  What the soil needs is tons of organic material and a few years, but for now after only one year, it looks pretty damn good, if I say so myself... which I never would.

I'm leaving plenty of flowers to finish the cycle and attract the butterflies, bees and birds.  The garden is always full of them... and grasshoppers, ants, caterpillars, etc...  I've had some huge mariposas in the last few days and this one was all..."I'm ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille."

And the cacti are drinking the moisture and flowering.  This is a nice biznaga of some sort.

They'll last a week or so and when the rains stop, the plant will just see in the sun and wait.