Spirit pumpkin. I've never had one so healthy, so long. SVBs have always been a huge problem. This is a more compact cultivar.Golden Acre cabbage starting to form a head.Florence fennel. A volunteer. Note the black swallowtail caterpillar in the upper portion. He's already about an inch and a half long!
One of my three Sungold tomatoes started blossoming a few days ago. I can't wait for these tasty nuggets!
Sweet Basil planted last season. It overwintered and is now starting to flower. It came in a gift herb kit. I never harvested any of it, so I'm hoping the beneficials will like it. That's why it's still hanging around. Peas are planted on both sides of it. You can see my Spirit Pumpkin in the back left.
Below are my tomatoes, a Spirit pumpkin in the near-middle, Golden Acre cabbage in front of that, onions in the back right, peas lining the lower of the picture.
The birdhouse I built a few weeks ago has found its first resident. A lovely pair of wrens! You can see one on the tomato cage holding nesting material.
Ellagance Purple lavender that I started from seed last season. Smells lovely.
Jacob Kline monarda. Five feet tall already!!! My Endless Summer hydrangea is blooming as well.
Rosy Returns daylily.
Flamenco Torch Lily. More of a light apricot than the orange I expected. Perhaps because it is so shaded by the monarda.

I'm beat. On this lovely afternoon, I planted my tomatoes, peppers, celery, zinnia, asclepias curassavica, fennel, cosmos, and marigolds. I still have a few more leftovers and other plants that need to get planted, but I'm exhausted. That's hard work. Sure feels good though.

My desperate attempt to attract hummingbirds. How can they miss this? I did it last season, and I think it worked. But so far...nothing.Irises are now blooming.
My seedlings and indoor plants are hardening off on my front porch after spending about a week on the more sheltered back porch.
The new, expanded front garden. The future home to lots of marigolds, snapdragon, milkweed, a tithonia, a pentas, and fennel to attract butterflies. I also started some carrot seed in the lower left portion along the sidewalk. Not for me to eat, but for the black swallowtails. They LOVE their leaves...A LOT.

Swallowtail Cat and Tomatoes!!!

Today's Tomato Harvest....sans the ones my daughter ate. :) The green ones are just Isis Candy tomatoes picked too early by my two year old. In the mix are two Kellogg's Breakfast, one Brandywine, Celebrity, Jet Star, and mystery small red tomatoes that were supposed to be Cherokee Green.After picking these I took a quick stroll through the garden. Wondering what is worth planting again next season and what wasn't. That's when I came across the fennel. I thought, "I planted fennel last season too and never had a black swallowtail use it as its host plant. Here we are again. No swallowta.....Wait! What's that? No way. NO WAY! A black swallowtail cat! Holy cow. Kids! Come look at this!"
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He's just over an inch long. On the smallest of the three fennel plants. The second my husband got home I dug up the pathetic fennel plant and transplanted it into a pot. Cat still on it. Placed it in my InsectLore butterfly house. I can't wait to see him metamorphasize into a beautiful black swallowtail. I'm way more excited than my kids. I've been planting asclepias tuberosa, parsley, and fennel. Never found a cat before. Never any damage to the foliage. Today was my lucky day! Below is the best picture of him that my camera would allow. It always wants to focus on something else. It thinks it is smarter than me. Ugh.
Here's his new home for the next couple of weeks. I still need to get some sticks for him to climb up and hang from.
He has just guaranteed that the fennel WILL be back next season.