A Break in the Drought and Cantaloupe Thieves

New cucumber plants

We have appreciated the rain. The garden is growing super quickly with the extra water and the cooler temperatures. We have some corn on the way, purple hull peas, okra and peppers. There are new cucumber plants with little cukes and some odds and ends of other things. We also have melons, but we are in a race to see how many we will get before the varmints eat them all.

Unripe cantaloupe

Banana peppers

When the cantaloupes are about one or two days away from picking they begin to send off fragrant fruit smells. Before we pick the fully ripe fruit, something comes along and eats it. I am guessing it is a raccoon, possum, squirrel or rabbit, or maybe several of these. They don't come every night and they only eat the ripest ones. They don't get all of them, but they have gotten several of them. We have yet to see what it is; very frustrating. They are either climbing over or under the fence. They may even be hiding out in the garden. It happens at night, which makes me think it isn't squirrels. They haven't eaten the corn, and I think raccoons would do that. Oh well we will keep trying to figure it out and take some kind of corrective action.

In the not so sneaky department, I caught a box turtle sneaking up on my compost makings. I sat the peelings outside to deter the fruit flies and when I opened the door to leave this morning, I caught the turtle checking out the container.  It surprised both of us. I can handle sneaky at that speed.