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. 

Possum Destruction

Walking Stick Insect

While I was repairing the possum damage to my deck today I got a good look at the first walking stick insect of the season.  It wasn't doing too good a job of camouflaging itself on the plastic wastebasket, but  maybe it was on it's way to vegetation where it would blend in a little better.  The legs were green and red and the body was a twiggy yellow-brown.  They look like toys to me, and the way they move is sort of slow and clumsy, they seem like artificial bugs somehow.

The possums went on a rampage while I was gone and spent their time feasting on cat food and knocking over and digging through my numerous potted plants on the deck.  I am seriously annoyed with them.  I had planted hazelnuts and English walnuts to grow some seedlings.  They have systematically dug up all the nuts and eaten them.  They also dug up avocado and mango pits as well.  Just my luck, possums with healthy tastes.

"Volunteer" cantaloupe

 

The garden is also in need of more catch up work.  I have replaced the green beans with corn.  I saw the first shoots today.  I also filled in a couple of empty spots with a succession planting of lettuce and some squash.

The melon is a cantaloupe that came up "volunteer" where last years compost pile was.  There is a small peach tree seedling and a tomato or two coming up from the compost as well.

The garlic crop is drying on a screen in the shade in the garden.  I planted two different kinds of garlic last year.  Some regular size cloves and some elephant garlic.  They have both done pretty well.  I am interested in seeing if they taste different after being grown in the same soil.

Harvested Garlic Drying on Screen

 I was able to put the first section of old fencing around the plums last night.  I watered them well in hopes of of another fresh growth of leaves (see previous blog posts).  I really want those little trees to grow.  They look so pathetic without leaves and with many of their twigs nibbled off.  I saw two fawns nearby today.  I am sure we will have a bumper crop of deer if nothing else.

Gardening and agricultural motifs are the most frequently used in the Bible.
It was the most common type of knowledge back in the day.  On rereading my post I see it's wisdom there.  Some of gardening is like Ecclesiastes, coming to terms with the futility of our own efforts and the need to accept that many things are beyond out control.  The volunteer part reminds me of the lilies of the field and also how one plants and another waters, but "God gives the increase".