The Culprit!

For the monarch butterflies, I decided to plant two varieties of Asclepias or milkweed.  I had two packets of seeds that I cold-treated.  I planted them when they were ready, and eight seedlings emerged.  Those eight turned to six small but healthy plants. Here's what they looked like.  There's a hint in this picture of what is about to happen.

After a few days, I noted that my milkweed plants had disappeared. I took the picture below when the mosquitoes were out in full force, so I didn't stick around to work on the outwitting the auto-focus of my camera.  That blur is a stem.

All that work refrigerating the seeds and weeding and babying the plants--gone to waste!  Well, actually not to waste.  Here's the culprit in the photo below.

Those plants fed a very healthy monarch caterpillar.  I don't know if the plants will recover, but I'm glad I did it.  

The Curl of the Scape

The title sounds like a Gothic novel, but the garlic scapes--that tall, curly stem containing a potential garlic flower--are ready to be trimmed.  The scapes can be used to add garlic flavor to recipes.  In fact, Martha Stewart cans them. However, they are a valuable source of strong-smelling deterent.  I place them around my tomatoes and other plants I want to rescue from the appetites of critters. Sometimes the flowers still bloom and self-seed, which means that I get a patch of mini-garlic that I can use like chives next spring. Who knew garlic could be so amazing?

July Update

Ah, basil.  The leaves are small (this is a close-up), but summer has truly arrived with the first taste of fresh basil.  Everything is slower than usual due to our wet weather, but the beans should be ready soon. (See below--Can mini vegetables be cute?!?). I've had excellent luck with lettuce this year (due to the weather,of course), and the pak choi has been so kind as to not bolt yet. It's so amazing when it's straight from the garden, but I suppose you can say that about any vegetable. This is the first of two posts to make up for my lack of recent posts.