Memoriable (sorry!) day in the garden

 I've heard tell of the legendary hot dog sized caterpillars wreaking havoc on our garden.  Today I got to meet one thanks to the keen eyes of Debbie Perkin's daughter, Courteney.  He was beautiful with tiny flecks of gold along his flanks and way too gelatinous to squish, esp. in front of the children!   My friend Melissa, who happened to be in park with her family, decided to take it home and see if they couldn't get it to cocoon and hatch.  I'll keep you posted on her science experiment.

Lots of visitors in the garden today!  We harvested basil, chard, poblano, banana and bell peppers and it looks like the tomatoes are beginning to ripen!  My favorite visitor was my friend Joy.  She's 5 and super into the garden.  She comes with her grandmother, Misha, and is so helpful and interested in everything.  Becky gave her some sunflower blooms to take home and sundry.

Our first okra!  

APB on dried bamboo.  I can't find any and desperately need some to stake tomatoes!

                       Please let me know if you have or know of some in the hood. 

Thanks!

Good things coming in the garden!

Who doesn't love a homegrown tomato?  Early in the spring we decided to max out the plots with as many tomato plants as possible.  We learned how to prune the vines to create more fruit and boy are they happy with the cool, wet spring we've had.   

It's a tomato jungle out there!  

The trick is to keep the tomatoes on the vine until harvest.  We've set up elaborate netted structures to keep out the squirrels and there's a search and destroy mandate on all cutworms, caterpillars and various hopping bugs.   We've had some tomato casualties, but I think were still on the winning end of things. 

In addition were trying a twist on an old classic.  Meet our scarecrow "Rake-chel" 

she's pretty fierce.  I think our new Mayor has a crush...