Patti has mostly bunny proofed Piper’s section of the yard, and Fern is thrilled with the new exploring possibilities.
She tastes everything she finds back there, which is going to end the volunteer beans I have left, but she is ignoring all of the tomato plants I have stuck back there which in that area is all I really care about.
She and Piper seem to now mutually enjoy each others company, and Piper allows Fern to groom her head, and Piper gives her an occasional lick to the face, which then takes the bunny a while to clean off of herself.
But I digress. Today is a split day, with me resting for the moment and a physical therapy appointment in about 45 minutes. We just got back from the Minnetonka garden, where we had a nicely productive and fun time.
Violet enjoyed everything from trying to catch baby toads, to watching me plant, or Patti weed out the remaining beds. As of today, there are only two beds left to plant, and I think all I will do with them is plant bushing green beans which will be no worry about getting to maturity before frost time.
Today I finally got in my Tug Hill paprika pepper plants. They are not a real long season pepper, and the plants are well developed as it is. They were all potted up well so I would expect them to be flowering in just a couple of weeks. 33 of them went into the ground today.
This is an example of how most of the Jimmy Nardello peppers which got nibbled off by something have recovered. Most, but not all. As I previously stated, it was just one bed that this happened to, and it was the smallest of the 3 beds of Jimmy Nardello peppers. I found another small flat of 6 Jimmys at home and I plugged those into the spots where the nibbled stumps have not leafed out again.
It really is fun to have Baby Violet following us around. More interest in observing what we are doing so far, so with weeding there is not, yet, an issue with her pulling out plants she should not. In the foreground of this photo are another 3 Manitoba tomatoes I plugged in today. These too should have no problem getting to maturity before frosts.
The Red Russian Kale I planted here is doing great. Not sure what else to say about it. The plants I have at my house I continue to cut leaves off of nearly every day for meals we have during the day, so interesting to see how big the plants are getting when left unmolested.
The pole beans planted last week are already up and we have nearly 100% germination. The earlier planting of F4 Hidatsa Shield/Dragon Tongue beans ( and only 2 different ascensions planted this year) are all vining well up the twine Nell strung between the top and bottom wires of the trellis.
Phoebe spent most of her time capturing baby toads. This is something I really wanted done as in our yard at home we have a plethora, threatening to be a plague, of grasshoppers. They are tiny at the moment, but so are the toads. in the two hours we were there Phoebe and Nell managed to collect about a hundred of the little guys that have come up from the pond on the West side of Mark’s property.
As I said, they are pretty small at the moment, but they are bigger than the baby grasshoppers.
The bucket was swarming with them by the time we left.
Phoebe kept the bucket next to her in the car for the ride home to prevent them from climbing out and then dehydrating to a mummified state in the car. We are pretty sure they all made the trip to our backyard just fine.
We did make a stop at David’s to check on the chickens and pick up eggs. They are happy and greeted us with noisy hellos. Nell gathered burdock leaves for them, Patti changed the water, I gathered eggs, and then it was off to home, a bowl of ice cream, and I have to head out in a half hour for PT. If we still feel up to it, this evening we will get time in at the Ness farm. Have not been back yet since I did the first 4 rows of weeding of the popcorn. <sigh> I will get it done, but my body does not allow me to do as much as I want it to do yet.
