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duskblooms.bsky.social
duskbloom gardens
@duskblooms.bsky.social
260 followers 87 following 1.2K posts
zone 7b/8a chesapeake bay coastal plains biome

plants, bugs, cats and love

he/him, ENG/ESP/ITA/日本語 ＯＫ！
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duskblooms.bsky.social
me, picking all of our grapes in august: how the fuck am i supposed to get ice wine when these are ready before the cocords??

frontenac gris, not to be misunderstood:
a bunch of green grapes on a mostly dead vine, small with varying levels of blush, silhouetted against a tree-lined and sky.
November 15, 2025 at 10:35 PM
duskblooms.bsky.social
super interesting discovery! while going through and surveying the frost damage from yesterday morning, i discovered two pepper plants who seem wholly unbothered! there were a ton of others near them and elsewhere in the bed that are dead/dying but these two are seemingly completely fine!
a photo showing a lot of dead pepper and tomato foliage along with some flowers that are still fine, but in the dead center are two pepper plants, one bushy and one viney, with red peppers still on them, seemingly totally fine after the frost kill.
November 15, 2025 at 10:08 PM
duskblooms.bsky.social
maybe someday
a very disappointing photo of the night sky, only vaguely brighter behind two large trees silhouetted in the foreground.
November 12, 2025 at 6:09 AM
duskblooms.bsky.social
shared some sweet potatoes with some colleagues and i am so glad one was as happy to receive this one as i was to give it to her
a photo of the sweet potato showing its slightly humped, elongated body and cute little tail. it very much looks like a rat.
November 6, 2025 at 6:05 PM
duskblooms.bsky.social
bottled the 2nd round of pyments last night, ~1/2 gallon of southern belle and blackberry each! i'm surprised at how shifting 25% of the total honey into specialty honey dramatically changed the flavour, but it makes me even more excited for next year

radish pyment went in last night
#homebrewing
four rows of glass bottles filled with bright if slightly cloudy pinkish red pyment. the two outermost rows are 1L swing top bottles and the inner rows are 3oz tasting bottles with corks. there are 4 of the litre bottles and a dozen taster bottles.
November 1, 2025 at 6:48 PM
duskblooms.bsky.social
i made her pick it herself and she said it was the best fig she'd had in years and perfectly ripe.
the fig from the previous post sliced in half to show its caramel-brown insides, held proudly in aforementioned witch's palms, proudly presented to the camera.
November 1, 2025 at 4:25 PM
duskblooms.bsky.social
my favourite witch is getting a samhain surprise
a photo of a green fig, very round and robust, hanging against the branch because its neck is limp, indicating its ripeness.
October 30, 2025 at 11:24 PM
duskblooms.bsky.social
big news
a single purple crocus flower nestled in a combination of onions and crocus leaves. three saffron threads freshly plucked and resting in my palm. they still look like stigma but will dry down into threads.
October 28, 2025 at 10:45 PM
duskblooms.bsky.social
anyway, the pan is very cute and only practical for making a single breakfast sandwich at a time but who cares
a perfectly round little cast-iron pan with a lifted handle resting on my fingers to show its size relative to my palm. i have slightly above average hands. beneath, for contrast, is a furry, pastel rainbow blanket.
October 26, 2025 at 10:48 PM
duskblooms.bsky.social
neighbour saw us packing the car to go out of town and warned me they issued a frost warning for tonight, so last second emergency harvest it is!

25.3lbs sweet potatoes and 20.3lbs of pumpkins

there are a few pumpkins still out on the vine but they aren't fully ripe so we shall see if they make it
a photo of a cardboard box full of purple sweet potatoes (紫) and three pumpkins (long island cheese) on a porch, freshly harvested.
October 9, 2025 at 9:17 PM
duskblooms.bsky.social
new weirdo discovered
a rather close up photo of a red-humped caterpillar well on its way to defolating a leaf. its body is a sickly yellow with black and white stripes running down the rear 75% of its body. they stop at a protruding red hump with black spikes sticking out of it. its head is also red and it has shorter black spikes along the center of its back in small clusters.
September 28, 2025 at 5:42 AM
duskblooms.bsky.social
If you see this, post a concert picture you took.
trent reznor at a piano in the middle of the pit at the beginning of the baltimore show.
September 27, 2025 at 2:25 PM
duskblooms.bsky.social
hey #bugsky dows anyone know who this is?
a brown chrysalis attached to some seeds with a tiny wasp on the side. the chrysalis is about an inch long. a side photo of the same chrysalis showing some of the spikier bits on the top and bottom.
September 25, 2025 at 11:08 PM
duskblooms.bsky.social
i have received a second gift
a little cranberry plant with wild branches and tiny leaves in a plastic bagged black starter pot.
September 16, 2025 at 8:16 PM
duskblooms.bsky.social
love little gifts people put on my desk for me
a photo of a white envelope with the handwritten label 'purple beans summer 2025' sitting on a wooden desk beneath a black keyboard.
September 16, 2025 at 1:19 PM
duskblooms.bsky.social
we were friends for a little while
a red-spotted purple butterfly resting on the ground. it actually isn't red or purple, but a dark, almost black shade of blue with some pale blue, orange and white markings toward the outer edges of the wings.
September 16, 2025 at 3:34 AM
duskblooms.bsky.social
it's real boneset hours now
a fraternal potter wasp covered in white pollen, face down in a boneset flower. it's a very interesting wasp with a hinge in the middle of its abdomen, splitting it into a large black bulb with pale cream stripes/spots and a thinner but still bulbous bridge section. it is largely black, including its wings, but does have more cream markings around its body and face.
September 16, 2025 at 3:22 AM
duskblooms.bsky.social
it's okay, she's okay, she is apology snuggling rn. the cookies were mostly solid and on a wire rack so no burned or dirty paws, just a bunch of tainted cookies and some yelling of dismay.
a photo of a long haired black cat with white whiskers resting against her human's chest, chin on his hand and eyes closed. she's purring softly.
September 12, 2025 at 2:04 PM
duskblooms.bsky.social
pyment update:

very active, so active that it had gotten some juice up into the airlock despite 1" of headspace. cleaned the airlock out and put it back, very excited it seems to be going well!

#homebrewing 🍷🍇🍯
September 11, 2025 at 7:32 PM
duskblooms.bsky.social
the irony is that the spiders were neighbours and i didn't notice lmao
a pulled back photo of two rose blossoms, one fully open and the other still somewhat closed. the more closed one is circled in orange, highlighting the little black jumping spider hanging out between the petals. the more open one is circled in purple where we now know the crab spider was hiding. the same two roses from a more top down perspective, revealing the crab spider, circled in purple. sneaky sneaky!
September 9, 2025 at 2:41 PM
duskblooms.bsky.social
i found the spider my husband intended me to photograph yesterday and it is a white-banded crab spider
a rose bloom with pale pink petals that fade darker on the edges with a similarly white-blushed-pink spider between the petals. it is waiting with its front two pairs of legs outstretched, ready to grab pray that comes to sample the blossom. the same rose and spider lit by the sun. the petals are tucked closer together in this photo, showing the trap more clearly.
September 9, 2025 at 2:41 PM
duskblooms.bsky.social
my husband found a juvenile bold jumping spider tucked between the petals of one of our roses and i had to come take a few photos
a photo of two roses, one in full bloom and the other still opening. the partially closed one has a small black spider visible beneath the outermost petals. the roses themselves are hot pink along the edges and outer petals, coming pure white toward the center. a closeup of the spider, showing the orange dots on its abdomen and the silver band above. it was very shy at first but came out more as i tried to get a good shot of it.
September 9, 2025 at 3:01 AM
duskblooms.bsky.social
i didn't get into the flu study i qualified for this week so now i get to go to renfest next weekend and idk what to wear

maybe the butterfly capes i started a few years back? i want to make more but The Cost Of Things™ is daunting (wool/silk)

i never actually shot them but here's some of the WIPs
a photo of a duct tape dummy wearing a cape fashioned to look like monarch wings. the front is actually the hindwings because it was shorter and the shape worked better. a photo of a duct tape dummy wearing a cape fashioned to look like monarch wings. the back is made from the forewings because it made a pleasing triangle shape. the negative space at the top was filled in with additional black fabric from below, allowing the shape of the wings to remain. a photo of the same dummy, half draped in monarch with a baltimore checkerboard forewing pinned on one side. it seems a bit more unfinished due to the lack of spots on the outside, but the lining would feature the full pattern as is true to life.
September 9, 2025 at 2:45 AM
duskblooms.bsky.social
barely got into the harvest before i ended up getting distracted by taking pics of bugs and hanging out with the neighbourhood cat but this is over 3.5lbs of just self-seeded san marzanos that will be going into sauce over the weekend
a large harvest basket half full of slightly oblong red paste tomatoes, a handful of purple spotted green beans, a single orange slicing tomato, a few sprays of broomcorn seedheads and one huge yellow squash the size of an adult forearm.
September 6, 2025 at 4:35 AM
duskblooms.bsky.social
pls look at this hornet about to fly off with the chunk of cicada i watched it slowly tear off the body #bugsky
a ground level photo of a triumphant european hornet, wings a blur as it prepares to take off, a big but unidentifiable chunk of bug in its mandibles. before it lies the rest of the cicada it killed, bright green wings identifying it as a swamp cicada.
August 28, 2025 at 1:23 AM