Cat War!

There is one thing I hate more then anything else…garden related.  Cats!  Strays are horrible and nasty and the worst thing in a garden.  I’m one that believes in being a responsible pet owner.  If you don’t want the pet, be grown up enough to find it a good home.  Don’t just kick it out the door to fend for itself.  And if you do want the pet, be responsible enough to not let your pet cause problems for your neighbors.  Honestly, you’re not doing your pet any favor by letting it roam willy-nilly all over the neighborhood.  Even if it’s a cat.  Especially if it’s a cat!  Do cat owners really think their “wittle bitty kitty” couldn’t ever possibly cause any harm?

1-2-3 Mosquito Punch!

If it’s not one pest, it’s another!  The battle to have a healthy, productive garden is an ongoing thing here.  But the benefits and rewards outweigh all the troubles…usually.  Last week I could barely walk into my garden without being attacked by a cloud of mosquitoes.  Not a fun experience…plus it makes it kind of hard to tend to the garden needs.

Squash Bug War Final Tally

A few skirmishes  are being fought here and there, but for the most part I think the war is over.  It was a hard won victory.  Though “victory” is probably not the best way to describe the outcome. With a heavy heart I must report heavy casualties…on both sides. 

“Come into my Parlor” said the Spider to the Fly

Or in this case…said the Soap to the Squash Beetle.  I’ve been struggling the last few weeks with a squash bug infestation in my garden.  At first I didn’t worry overly much about it.  In the past I’ve had great success with Safe Solutions.  But either these are super bugs with kryptonite armor or the Safe Solutions product has changed.  I’m disheartened to think that I’m not going to be able to rely on this product any more.  But I’m a results kind of person, and if nothing else has changed and it’s not working effectively against squash bugs, then I can’t trust it to work right in other areas.

Summer/Fall Garden

With all the busy craziness happening here, my poor garden (and yard) has been shamefully neglected.  Our hydroponics experiment had many successes and a few failures.  Earlier this year we reevaluated my garden and decided to redo a few things.  This worked great when we decided to start the chicken nugget adventure…our redesign didn’t take much to adjust for the chickens.  Unfortunately, redesigning also delayed my garden this year.  Not ideal, but life happens and we move on.  🙂

Bees Anyone?

This was a few months ago, but it was scary and amazing and very cool.  CareBear went out to check her butterfly garden visitors and nearly ran into this:

Garden Disaster

Early last month, on a seemingly good day, I walked outside to look at my garden. This is what I found…

Adventures in Pickling

Over the weekend GadgetMan and I had the opportunity to participate in a Preparedness Workshop.  We were asked to teach a class on pickling.  Okay…I can not say why this happened

Garden Triumphs

Winter seemed to drag its feet into spring and now spring is racing into summer.  Even though our weather here doesn’t get to freezing very often, little spring is still frustrating for gardens.  Weather in the high 90s and low 100s is always hard on young plants…any plant really.  I always worry that my little garden is going to scorch.  But so far so good.  Things are covered and shaded as need be and seem to be doing well if not thriving.  Here are a few pictures of my particular triumphs.

Cat Fight – Checkmate!

We did it! We found a way to keep the neighbor’s strays out of my garden…and no cat lost its life in the process…