Garden Grief

I've finally done it, I've planted a garden.

Only took me about 10 years to finally go ahead on this project. So that's a 6x4 box kit that I brought down from OR back in April. Lumber is much cheaper in OR than in SoCal. Maybe because there are trees, and lumber mills up there. We have gophers around here, so after I put the box together, I lined the bottom with wire mesh, as a gopher deterrent. With the snakes, hawks, owls and the cat all hunting those gophers, I'm surprised there are any around at all, yet they persist, and would make short work of the garden if they got in. This is many layers of rabbit fencing (because we have rabbit problems too) that I had on hand. A layer of cardboard went over that. Then dirt mixed with the compost that only cost $5 for a pickup truck load, as long as we loaded it ourselves, with a shovel. Good thing my husband didn't know that before we started.

Once the soil was, it was time for seeds. I planted corn, Mexican grey squash, cucumber, cantaloupe, watermelon, cilantro, eggplant, bell pepper, tomato, jalapeno and green onions. I had already bought some big tomato plants, because I just couldn't wait for tomatoes, sweet and ripe from the plant. You can see them in front of the box garden, in the top picture. Under the bird netting. Because we learned that gophers aren't the only garden party poopers to worry about. 

Daily, actually multiple times daily, I'd go out  I still go out and coo over the tomato plants. One morning I found insect eggs on a leaf! Ack!

Oh my goodness! What if those are tomato worm eggs? I plucked the leaf and tossed it in a jar and waited to see what hatched... Meanwhile, that very night, I a spied a hawk moth flying around the tomato plants. Guess what tomato worms grow up to be? After about a week, the tiniest little caterpillars ever hatched out. I could barely see them let alone identify them. But whatever they were, they were little leaf munchers and I didn't want them on my plants. 

To be continued...