Piggy has started chasing squirrels! This is very exciting for two reasons. 1- The squirrels were eating all the started veggies off my plants before I could get them! And 2- We’re most likely keeping Piggy! She’s captured the Husband with her ridiculously goofy snorts and many dog kisses. She’s quite serious in this picture, as she was supervising the rearranging and cleaning of my sewing space. I’ll do that update in a few days, when I can get things put away. It’s still messy. It’s in a better spot though, I think, so that’s good.

She does like to be outside and we were super excited when she started treeing squirrels. She’s not quite fast enough to catch them though, at least so far. Tonight she stalked one across the yard while it was on the cinder blocks for the garden and then charged until it was up a tree. I approve quite hardily!

I learned an interesting fact this year. Tomatillos grow the husk first and then the fruit grows after that and into the husk! So cool, but I was a little confused at first. Here’s a picture.

I have two orange Juliet cherry tomatoes starting to turn and a lot of green ones on other plants. My homemade cages are mostly working. I am pleased with them, so I’ll set them up next year too.

I have eaten my second produce from the garden too! A little radish! We had one lonely strawberry this year. I think they need some extra compost in the fall to keep them better over the winter.

I also used some of the rhubarb in a fun new quick bread recipe. It was pretty good. I have also been excited about having arugula in my salads. It’s fun to have something to make the salads a little less boring.

My hot peppers are growing, the squirrels stole one, but abandoned it in the garden, as usual. My other peppers keep getting eaten before they can grow.

My zucchini has a lot of flowers, but they keep getting eaten, so I don’t know how many zucchini I’ll get this year. It bums me out, I was going to make more squash pickles to share with Dad.

I made a scare bag to put in the garden, but I might need a few more. My Grandpa Ed used to put them in his garden and he was a fantastic gardener, so I’m hoping some of his garden luck will rub off on me. My rhubarb is planted in his memory as well, so I was excited to use it this year.

Some of my herbs are growing and I need to replace a couple of them. It’s been too hot and I haven’t been able to water them enough. I also transplanted a couple of the volunteer tomato plants into pots instead of in the middle of the cucumbers/carrots/etc.

We have a couple of interlopers that we are going to work on getting rid of. These are American Pokeweed and these are we think, Poison Oak.

My younger brother is staying with us for a little while and as it turns out, he’s immune to poison ivy! We’re all hoping this also applies to poison oak, although he will be wearing the necessary protective gear of course. He’s going to dig out the area by the apple tree that we had planned to turn into another garden space anyway. I’m thinking we’ll put two narrow beds in it to grow herbs or things that can be trellised. For now though, after he digs it all out, we’re going to cover it with landscape fabric and set up the blocks to hold it down. Hopefully it’s not gotten too far away from that area and into the ground cover a little ways over.

Piggy has been getting very itchy after coming in from outside and we suspect that might be why. We’ve got an itch relief spray for her and some wipes that seem to help.

We did have a nice interloper though. A big toad! Piggy found it and was sniffing it until I made her leave it alone. It hopped off into the bushes. Being so close to the river, we do get a lot of toads and frogs. I think it’s fun!

I think that’s all the garden updates recently. Everything seems to be taking a long time to grow and produce. I think we need to add some compost for next year to get the extra nutrients into the soil. Hopefully I will have some more updates soon!