Buena Garden

Buena Garden 🌱 Growing food at home (wins & fails)
🍅 Fruits • veggies • real garden life
📍 Zone 10 | SoCal backyard
👇 Follow for simple garden joy

09/04/2026

I wasn’t planning to harvest these yet. 🍌

This Nam Wah banana has been growing in a container, and I really wanted to let my first bunch ripen longer on the plant—but the heat had other plans. The tips started getting burned, and a few bananas actually split open before we could harvest them.

So we decided it was better to cut the whole bunch and let them finish ripening indoors.

And apparently harvesting bananas has a learning curve too. 😂 We lost the ones that had already split, accidentally cut a few more while separating the hands…and somehow STILL ended up with 130+ bananas. 🤭🍌

130+ bananas. From a container. I’m still a little shocked. 😂

Definitely a learning experience for our first bunch. Next time, I’ll know to protect the fruit from extreme heat instead of waiting too long to harvest.

Now comes the hard part…waiting for all these Nam Wah bananas to ripen. 🍌

Apparently I’m not the only one interested in saving seeds around here. 😂🌱I was going to clean up these spent flower sta...
09/01/2026

Apparently I’m not the only one interested in saving seeds around here. 😂🌱

I was going to clean up these spent flower stalks, but someone clearly had other plans.

This little visitor went straight for the dried seed heads and helped itself — one seed at a time. And judging by that last mouthful, it found exactly what it was looking for. 😂

Just another reminder that sometimes leaving a few spent flowers in the garden is worth it. What looks finished to us can still be food for someone else. 🐦🌿

A little harvest can still make a pretty basket. 🧺🌿A bunch of grapes, one dragon fruit, a couple of sapodillas, a passio...
08/28/2026

A little harvest can still make a pretty basket. 🧺🌿

A bunch of grapes, one dragon fruit, a couple of sapodillas, a passion fruit, and a guava… definitely not a huge harvest, but I’ll take it. 😂

That’s one of my favorite things about growing fruit at home. Everything ripens on its own schedule, so sometimes the harvest is just a little of this and a little of that.

And somehow, once it all lands in the same basket, it feels like plenty. 💚

What would you grab first?

08/28/2026

My very first Delight dragonfruit did not disappoint. 💗

It weighed in at 1 lb 8.1 oz, and cutting it open to that gorgeous pink flesh was even better than I expected. 😍

And the final test… 18.5° Brix! Sweet, juicy, and definitely a variety I’m happy to be growing.

Not bad for my first Delight! 😂🐉💗

Dragonflies are making headlines in California right now. 🐉✨Unusually large swarms have been spotted across parts of the...
08/27/2026

Dragonflies are making headlines in California right now. 🐉✨

Unusually large swarms have been spotted across parts of the state, with some sightings numbering in the hundreds.

As garden visitors go, these are some of the good guys. Dragonflies are incredible hunters, feeding on mosquitoes, flies and other flying insects. Basically, free pest control with wings. 😂

Anyone else noticing more dragonflies lately?

Today, these butterflies mean something a little different. 🦋A small tribute to the incomparable Dolly Parton — a woman ...
08/25/2026

Today, these butterflies mean something a little different. 🦋

A small tribute to the incomparable Dolly Parton — a woman whose music, kindness, humor and heart touched generations.

It only felt right to fill this post with butterflies and let her beautiful words do the rest.

Rest in love, Dolly. 🤍🦋
Your songs will always be with us.

08/25/2026

One foxglove can give you hundreds of seeds if you know when to collect them. 🌸

Once the flowers fade, I leave the seed pods on the stem until they turn brown and dry. That’s when they’re ready to harvest.

My favorite way to collect them? Straight into a jar. Just snip the dried stems and shake—the tiny seeds fall out with hardly any mess. 🌱

Just make sure to collect them before the pods split open on their own or your garden might do the seed saving for you. 😂

And wear gloves when handling foxglove. All parts of the plant are toxic if ingested, so I like to play it safe.

Let the seeds stay dry, then store them somewhere cool and dry until you’re ready to sow again. 🌸

08/24/2026

Over 2 years of waiting and now we’re here. 🍌🌱

My Dwarf Nam Wah banana took more than two years to finally send up its first flower, and I’ve been documenting the bunch ever since.

April → August, those tiny bananas have slowly filled out…and they’re STILL not ready. 😂

Once a banana plant flowers and sets fruit, the waiting isn’t over. It can take several more months for the bunch to fully develop and ripen, depending on the growing conditions.

But comparing April to August? They’ve come a LONG way. 🍌

Now we wait some more. 😂

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Orange County, CA

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