Hello from the Squirrel War that’s being fought in my garden! Major players are myself, Piggy, and the Husband. Only one of the squirrels has a name- Steve the Stupid Squirrel. The rest are collectively known as several unladylike words, which I will not repeat as to spare my poor innocent Mother’s ears. 😉

We’re all doing our part for the war effort. The Husband valiantly throws rocks at the squirrels while outside. Piggy stalks squirrels across the yard and then chases them up trees surprisingly fast for such a little tank/potato of a dog. She’s been a big help. The other day I looked out and she was balanced on the cinder blocks munching on the grass stalks that I hadn’t weeded yet while the squirrels yelled at her from the tree.

I ended up spraying vinegar on the cinder blocks and diluted peppermint oil all over the plants and that seemed to help keep the critters away. The neighbors also live trapped a groundhog in their yard to relocate as they didn’t feel like sharing their pool or tomatoes with it. I think that might have been what was eating everything as well. We think we had a burrow in our backyard. We filled it in, after making sure it was empty.

My zucchini gave me one tiny squash and I think I have squash borers, so half the plant is dead. The other half still has flowers though. I do have tomatoes coming through finally. I had caprese with garden basil and three kinds of garden tomatoes today for lunch. There was a Lemon Boy, Mr. Stripey, and some unknown cherry tomatoes from one of my volunteer plants.

My cukes are coming in! I’m hoping to make pickles as part of my canning adventures this weekend.

I found a big one hiding in the vines while I was tying them up over the weekend and have been happily eating it up. I even made a cucumber gin gimlet!

We have harvested some hot peppers and there’s a bunch of these Mad Hatter peppers growing too.

I missed the first tomatillos, but we have more on the plant. I had to look up how to know when they were ripe.

The bell peppers are coming back, which is good. I don’t remember if these are purple or green. My tags didn’t stay with the plants this year, due to squirrel interference. 🤨

We even have strawberries coming back and rhubarb (in the featured pic.)

I’ve killed some herbs and need to look at what seeds I have to see if there’s any quick growing things I can plant. We currently have an arugula forest that I need to pick and save seeds from. It made delicious pesto, so I’ll be making more of that for sure. My tea herbs are due for a trim as well, so I’ll be drying those for winter time cold fighting teas.

I know I’ll have to supplement my garden produce with store produce when I start canning, but I know what to do differently next year.

Piggy is currently sleeping like this and it’s making me giggle. I thought I should share it with you, in case you also needed a chuckle.

Wish me luck in the Squirrel Wars and send extra zucchini!