I have to admit, after yesterday’s damage, I was quite trepidatious about checking the garden beds while doing this morning’s rounds!

I was, however, greeted with a happy sight, first thing.

Potato Beetle is still here!

With him being gone for so many months, there’s no reason to assume he’s here to stay, so every day that we see him will be a gift. :-)

The down side is, he’s been mean to the other cats. Though he used to be part of the crowd filling the kibble house since we built it last fall, he chased all the other cats away this morning. Yesterday, he went after Nutmeg for no reason, and even growled at Junk Pile cat while she was hiding under the cat shelter. I’m hoping this will settle down once he’s been back for a while.

I found an Ozark Nest Egg gourd blooming this morning. Between the density of the leaves, the chain link fence and the protective wire around them, there’s no way I can look to see if there are any female flower buds developing. Of the few I could see, they were still only male flowers. The vines are pushing their way through the chain link fence, and we should be able to start training them up the fence soon.

If they don’t get eaten, first!

More and more tomatoes are starting to change colour. Until today, the most Spoon tomatoes we’ve had ripe at the same time was only three. Plus, we have our very first ripe grape tomato, from the Mosaic Medley mix of seeds!

Alas, there was more deer damage this morning, though nothing like what we found yesterday. This time, it was the yellow beans that got nibbled on.

I was able to pick a small handful of both green and yellow beans this morning, but I am not finding anything in the purple beans. While moving aside their leaves to look, I was seeing a lot of stems, and I wonder if they’d been eaten. The purple beans have so much more foliage, it’s harder to tell, compared to the other beans.

While the sweet corn and sunflowers appeared untouched, I found an entire Dorinny corn pulled out of the ground. The plant next to it has a big chomp taken out of the cob.

The ants were all over that cob!

I also found a cob that had been torn off another plant, with nothing but a nibble off the top. Curious, I went ahead and shucked it.

It was almost completely ripe! It was so well pollinated, too.

Well, I wasn’t about to let it go to waste, so I washed it and ate it raw.

It was delicious!

However things go for the rest of the season, at least I can say I’ve tasted both the Dorinny and the Montana Morado corn this year. :-D

I had one more find that I wanted to share, but I saved the photo for last. If spiders bother you, you might want to quickly scroll on by.

…

Still here?

…

I found a garden friend among the purple bean leaves.

I had been pushing aside and turning the leaves, looking for beans underneath, so it was a real surprise to see this spider, not being startled away. Just look at the grip it’s got on that egg sac! It didn’t move at all while I got close to take the photo. Such a good mama!

When I was done, I took the leaf off and put it on the ground in between some bean plants, where it was more sheltered.

Once I was back inside, I checked the garden cam files and confirmed that yes, it was a deer that had done this morning’s damage. The only other critter that triggered the motion sensor was Potato Beetle, while he was keeping me company in the garden yesterday evening.

I have a few ideas on what to try next to keep the deer out, but I’ll need to go into to town to find the materials for it. Today is a holiday here in Canada, and there is a festival going on in town right now, so I’m going to avoid it completely. :-/

The Re-Farmer