Tag: photos

Gardening Diary: Tomato Frog (Toad)

I’m so behind on my gardening updates. I’ve been shooting a lot of photos, but I just don’t have the time to update the blog!

But I wanted to mention another fascinating bit of nature. Back about a month ago, I was in my garden in the morning, and I was pleasantly surprised to see a teenie tiny frog (or is he a toad?) sitting atop of one of my cherry tomatoes. He was mid-plant, about 2-3 feet up.

I immediately rushed inside to get my camera, and snapped a bunch of photos of his cuteness.

Look, can you see him? He’s in the middle of the photo, on a tomato. He was so tiny!
tomato frog/toad on top of cherry tomato in my garden

Here is a close up. You can see his tiny fingers grasping onto the tomato stem. So freakin’ cute!
tomato frog/toad on top of cherry tomato in my garden

I love my garden! There’s always something new to discover. It’s sad that summer is fading, and so is my lovely garden.

Even though I’ve grown a few veggies in prior years, this was truly the first year that I was serious about gardening. The first year is always a bit special, but I hope I always feel the same appreciation and respect for what’s growing out there EVERY season. I know subsequent seasons probably won’t feel as “wondrous” as this year, and that makes me sad too.

Gardening Diary: Garden Expansion Photos

I wanted to share some of the photos I took of my little veggie garden. It started off smaller, then expanded, and expanded.

For now, I’m posting wide angles, but soon, I’ll share more detailed photos to show the growth of each plant.

Last season, we started with a very small patch of garden, as you can see from notes on two photos. Our first expansion was adding a few more feet next to the fence, and another row with a pathway.

Here’s what it looked like on 5/24 (with notations for last season).

We’ve got (1st row near fence) snap & shell peas, a large perennial oregano plant, beet seedlings, more peas, pickling cucumbers, then (2nd row), carrots, lettuce, brussells sprouts, red cabbage, and eggplant. In containers, there’s red cabbage, potatoes, (2) lettuce, and (2) brussels sprouts.

Oh and we also have grape vines in the fence corner, and another vine in the middle area of the fence.
the garden started
The containers were placed on top of long metal fence posts to allow good drainage.
the garden started
garden diagram from last season

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Humbled By a Spider

This morning, after a marathon weeding and grass-clipping along the fence near our vegetable garden, I snipped off two branches of grape leaves, so I could perhaps try a new recipe. I left them for a few minutes inside in the workroom, and when I came back later to get them, I picked them up, and noticed a huge H-U-G-E spider moving on the leaf. I immediately screamed and dropped the branches on the floor!

Then I got up my nerve, picked up the branches, praying that I could get them outside without the spider dropping off in the workroom. I tossed the branch on the pile of weeds/grass in the wheel barrow and ran inside to grab my camera. No one would believe how icky and gross this spider was, I needed photos! I mean this spider was like 2-3 inches!

I took lots of photos, at every angle. (Note: If you have a fear of spiders, don’t read any further, as I’m including detailed photos that might be troubling to someone with arachnophobia.)

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