Before I forget

Finally finished planting my garden

Before I forget to post this blog, I'd better get it written down. I swear, last Saturday I had every intention of writing a post, and I even had a topic: the death of Lonesome George, the last giant tortoise of his kind in the world. When I traveled there I met him, if you can call looking at his shell meeting him. In my mind, I had written and posted all about it, but no, I found that I completely spaced not only Saturday's post, but Tuesday's as well.

So all about my garden! Those closest three rows you see in the picture were planted yesterday, with collard starts and black kale. I also put some marigold plants in each row to discourage pests. Slugs are driving me crazy. Look what they've done to my squash plant.

It's not just the leaves close to the ground; they have almost entirely eaten my sweet basil, which it seems they love. I am reduced to using Sluggo (those little white pellets on the ground), since they don't seem to be deterred in the least by the eggshells. I have yet to try the beer solution, but someone suggested copper all around the entire garden. I just went out to inspect those last rows and they did munch on a few of those tender leaves as well. Since they were planted yesterday, I know they are either not taking the bait or there are just too many of them. Not everybody is unwelcome, though. Yesterday I noticed this guy who seemed to fall in love with the young radish leaves:

Is this a moth or a butterfly? He's really huge, beautiful and unafraid to pose for his picture, it seems. Such a pretty thing. He was in my neighbor's garden plot, just flitting back and forth around the newly sprouted radishes. I also saw this morning an exciting opening blossom on my Asian eggplant. Those slugs better not bother this guy, since I have every intention of eating the fruit of it myself!

Asian eggplant blossom, 30 June 2012

Yesterday I broke a few leaves off the kale plants I put in the ground last month, which are looking really good. Apparently slugs prefer basil to kale; although they've tasted them they haven't attacked kale in the same way as other plants. You can see there are two varieties of kale here, although now I don't remember which is which. One is more strongly flavored than the other, but the two of us took a stem each and raised them like glasses of wine before we devoured them raw. Yum!

When I awoke this morning to a light rain (good for the garden!), I decided to go ahead and go on the morning walk with my lady friends. On the way there, the rain grew heavy enough for me to wonder about my decision, but before we had gone once around Lake Padden, the rain had stopped and we even saw the sun a few times. Little Alfie was sporting a brand-new raincoat, with cute little buttons and a hood. When he jumped up in his owner's arms, she pulled the hood up, but I missed the shot. He reluctantly allowed me to get this picture for you to enjoy.

By the time we returned from going around the lake twice (a total of 5.2 miles), this little raincoat was completely muddy and dirty, much like our shoes. I was really glad I went, though, since I am now feeling much more appreciative of the overcast skies than when I first got out of bed. In a short while I'll head to the movies with Judy. It's already been a good day, and I managed to remember to write a post for my blog!
:-)