Kiss My Knits!

We’ve got a couple of cukes growing. A few other baby veggies, too. And lots and lots of chili peppers.

We have quite a few basil volunteers in the garden this year. As usual, we’ll be giving some away. We only need a few big bushy ones – this many will just crowd each other out.

After we found the freaky tobacco hornworm chrysalis four days ago, we put it to the side. I don’t know why – maybe for later dissection. Its abdomen had stopped moving, so I guess I assumed it was dead and therefore not a danger to our garden.

What did they say in Jurassic Park? Nature finds a way?

Today after work I went to water the garden. I looked into the watering can before filling it. And there in the bottom of the can was this tobacco hornworm moth. And sure enough, the chrysalis which had been in a cardboard box several yards away was gone. The creature must have emerged and dragged itself to what it thought was the relative safety of the can before beginning to dry its wings.

It’s beautiful right now. It will probably be less so when our tomatoes are under attack.

Remember how our tomatoes were ravaged by tobacco hornworms last summer? We thought we’d combat that this year by putting tomatoes in a different plot about 10 feet away. The eggplants were there last year, and the soil was turned over thoroughly. Maybe not THAT thoroughly, since we have an eggplant volunteer growing, but enough to get rid of pests, we thought.

Cut to this morning, when my husband is turning over the soil again now that we’re finally getting off our keisters to put some roma tomatoes in. This 2″ long monster came up in the shovel, moving its abdomen in lazy circles. It’s a tobacco hornworm pupa.

I thought we were rid of them. Sigh. Looks like we’ll have to keep a close eye on the tomatoes this year.

I’m sure the neighbors hate our long grass, but until we get a chance to cut it, I’m really enjoying the flowers.

We’re a bit late getting started with the garden this year, and the center plot has taken matters into its own hands.

This is last year’s parsley. These two plants grew like a weed and bolted very quickly. I might just let them do their thing so they’ll self-seed for next year.



The basil has also come back. This isn’t unusual – last year we had the entire center plot full of basil, even after we thinned it out and gave away plants to our friends. It was great.



The dill seems to have returned as well. We had one plant that went to seed near the end of the season, and I see at least two little dill plants coming up.

I’m not sure what else we’ll plant in there, but we’ve got the makings of some good food already, and we haven’t really done any work.

The other plots will have tomatoes, eggplant, maybe some peppers, and whatever else we decide to plant on a whim. And who knows, maybe the veggies will come up again from the previous season’s seeds. That’s what happened last year.

Have at it, Mother Nature. Make us a meal!

My beloved Siberian Irises are blooming.

They occupy a place next to the oregano, very near the poor doomed rosemary bush that we had to hack back so hard this year.

I’ve just discovered that there’s an iris variety called Towanda Red Flare. I think I need to plant some of these very soon.