We had a busy Saturday here at Casa FinneMurph, finally getting to parts of the backyard that haven't gotten much attention all summer. What with our square foot garden obsession (who wants to weed when there are radishes to plant?) and the sheer size of our yard, we hadn't gotten around to cleaning out two big sections of the backyard. It really was a jungle out there. Now things look sparser, but much, much better: no more quack grass, corn thingies, tiny maple trees, and creepy-crawly viney weeds. Now it's time to figure out what to do with the spaces where boring plants and weeds have been serving as place-holders until we decide what we want to do there. Prairie plants and wildflowers? Buddha garden? Gnomes? That's going to be next spring's project, but any and all ideas are welcome.
In the meantime, here's a little flavor of the yard. Right now the garden's busting with tomatoes. We've also started to get cukes and a tasty sprinkle of strawberries. They are few and far between, but delicious.
The hostas in the backyard jungle are gorgeous right now. According to my sister Bobbi, the Hosta Queen, very few varieties of hostas have fragrant flowers. Ours in the jungle do, and they are all in full bloom right now.
Finally, in the midst of all the weed-whacking we managed to save this gorgeous guy, who turned up in the pile of stuff we were jamming into lawn bags. Nature is so cool.
You have yourself a Monarch caterpillar. They usually favor milkweed but when you are packing it in to get yourself ready to turn into a chrysalis, any tasty leaves will do.
Posted by: Jim Finnegan | 23 August 2009 at 01:25 PM