Step Away from the TOMATOES!

I haven't had a tomato snatched for 2 nights now so maybe the blockade I made is working. However, this morning I went out and found a tomato hornworm hanging around! They really are cool looking though so I let him munch a bit while I took pics, then left him there until Jake woke up so he could see him "live".

Aha! I learned how to use the macro setting on my camera. No more blurry pics - well for small things anyway. Oh,but wait, he's not small. Still...you know what I mean!

Anyway, I got sidetracked by some black swallowtail cats and totally forgot to fling this guy into oblivion. So by the time I remembered he'd actually made it to a tomato and had a little snack. It was a small unripe one. I cut the rest off and gave it to the bunny who happily finished it off.

So, check out one of my cats! I'm so excited about them:

There are two others in there, enjoying the Savory. Can we bring in the cocoon (or chrysalis or whatever the correct term is) and hatch the butterfly? I guess I'll have to google that. It would be interesting

Raccoons!

Raccoons! They are stealing my tomatoes. The other day I went out to check my first one that was looking ripe and it was GONE!!! The funny thing was, do you know where they left behind the evidence? On top of the leaf compost pile!! LOL. So even though I was a bit upset, I had to laugh that they left the remains in the compost.

I got out and covered the box with netting, but they were able to get the next one anyway.Last night I put some trellis pieces around the box and we'll see if they got into it today.Gosh, they are SO cute. I wish they wouldn't take all of the veggies. I'd share, but they keep taking everything ahead of time.I snagged a green tomato off of one of the vines and brought it in for the bunny. We shared it. I have never eaten a non-ripe tomato and I have to say it was crispy and sweet. I like it better than a ripe tomato. Because honestly I really don't eat tomatoes if they aren't in salsa or ketchup, or cut up tiny on a fajita. To me they are mushy and the inner gooey seed slime part is disgusting. Ok, enough tomato ranting. Let me see if the pic of the tomatoes in the leaves shows. The camera completely fogged up upon going outside (that's FL humidity for you!). Nope, too foggy. Oh well, maybe next time!

Finishing Up the Clean Up!

Alright, so there it is! It looks sooo much nicer than at the beginning. There is a small area over by the leaf pile (behind that white trellis) that isn't covered. I was one bag short! But that is okay for now, as the leaves still need to settle and will still blow out of the pile for a bit anyway. Later this week I'll fill that little spot. That purple "tent" back there is my peppers box. Those are curtains (sheers) hanging and shading the box - and I'm FINALLY getting some peppers holding onto the plants. Hurray!!

Garden Restoration - Continued

I have been out in the yard the past few days doing more weeding, more picking up leaves, and adding more mulch! I had to yank all of the squash and zucchini - pickleworms got into them! What a disappointment. I really wanted to deliver some squash to my spare-a-square members. We'll have to try again in September after the pickleworms pack up and leave. Speaking of leaves, I have tons of leaves...and even more worms. Every handful of leaves I pick up has worms and I can see the decomposition under the leaves just from February. This is going to make some awesome compost along with the bunny berries and kitchen scraps. Anyway, there's a pic of my progress. I'm about halfway done!

Operation: Garden Restoration!

Alright, I have let the areas that surround the boxes really get out of control. I've been fairly good about weeding inside the boxes and keeping those nice. But the pathways are a mess! When I added the 4 new boxes I couldn't afford mulch, but I wanted to cover the weed control fabric, so I used the dead leaves in the yard. I had bags and bags and bags full, and so did my parents. But now it is looking messy and covered in weeds.

On to Operation: Garden Restoration! Today I worked on one section of the garden. I plan to work on a segment once a week until I have it looking all nice and clean. Plus I can only fit 10 bags of mulch in my trunk at a time LOL. Those leaves though - wow are they full of worms! I'm moving the leaves to a compost pile and letting it just become a nice little worm city.

So here's the Before Pic...It's awful!

and the Step One Pic...

It looks so much nicer already! I can't wait to get it finished, and then I need to keep up with it better.

What's on my lima?

So I saw these little buggers on my lima. What are they? And is that ladybug going to eat them? :) :)

End of May Garden Info

So far, so good. Because of the rain some things are a little yellow, but I think they are about to get a break now. Quite a few things popped up during those stormy weeks that I couldn't get out often enough to really check things out. Things are growing!! Go figure, they were able to get pollinated without my help LOL. I might even get one ear of corn out of things this year - bigger than 2"!

A Zucc growing from the spare a square program :) .

Tomato!! Last year these didn't grow (too hot), then in the fall they started to grow but the freeze in the winter killed them. This I think will be my first successful batch of tomatoes. Salsa & ketchup here we come!

I got more squares prepped this weekend for fall. I'm going to have to start planning the fall garden soon so that I am ready. The sweet potato vines have FINALLY started digging into the soil. for a while they just wanted to grow and be free, but they have rooted themselves now. I hope we get at least as good a harvest as last year. Only one box full this year though.

In June I'm going to focus on clean up around the boxes. When I made them I couldn't afford new mulch so I used a combination of old mulch from the front yard we had redone, and then added bags of raked leaves in the winter to cover the weed fabric. Well, as you can imagine it is quite messy and the weeds sprouted from all of the reused items and have taken over. So my plan is to buy a few bags of mulch a week and work on a small area at a time to get it looking pretty.

Here's my measly harvest of potatoes... Small and not very many. The upper portion had wilted and died off though so I dug them out. I don't know if it was because they were just from the store that I started them with. Or I didn't cover the leaves well enough? Whatever it was, at least I got a few!

Memorial Day Pics

Here's how things were growing as of Memorial Day. It stopped raining long enough for me to get some garden time! I harvested one of the cabbage and made cole slaw! It was good, but I used way too much mayo - oops!

Beans (need to plant more next year.), Cabbage, Cauli. One of the cauli's is growing a good head, but the other one was very sparse and is actually beginning to flower.

Jake's really cool sunflower. It is so tall and has tons

of flowers ready to bloom. And the flowers themselves

are thickly layered petals, very cool!


Celery, Zucc's, Cukes, & onions.

The cukes & zucc's are from the spare a square program. Hope they start growing well!