Disaster! (or, Attack of the Giant Dogs)

Tuesday afternoon, somedoggy managed to pull the bottom corner of welded-wire fence loose from the chain-link at the end of the patio. Through the hole it created, the Big Sister and the Goofball got into the garden. The lima beans were planted in the area where they broke through, and were completely destroyed. All four of the string beans were trampled on; one was completely destroyed, two were flattened, and the fourth was bruised. One of the flattened ones died, the other is recovering.

The empty dirt in the bottom half of the picture is where three lima bean plants were, including one that was already over a foot tall as it was a survivor from the indoor seedlings. Of the three string bean plants in the top half the pic, the bottom one and the one above it survive. I planted some more limas and a couple more string beans.... I'll be lucky if I get limas by September!

(I rewired that corner of the fence, then put up a new piece of welded wire attached on one side to the welded-wire section of the fence and on the other to the chain-link section, completely covering the "seam" where they were originally joined together so the dogs can't get to it at all. Hopefully that'll do the trick!)

They they also got the smallest of the "new" tomato plants, the ones I only transplanted into the garden a week and a half ago. Oh well, there are two more of the same variety, either in the garden or in pots. The others are doing well, though! The "newer" tomatoes:

The "older" tomatoes are thriving. Here's the heirloom Cherokee Purple, it's almost 3 feet tall already! To the right of it are two very small plants, survivors of the indoor seedlings. These plants are roughly a month or a little more behind the "store bought" tomato plants, but this is a variety that's supposed to produce tomatoes in 45 days from being transplanted into the garden and produce continuously until fall, so they should still yield well. In the background, you can see the cucumber plants really starting to take off.

Here are the two original store-bought tomato plants, one a Roma and the other a beefsteak-type. On the left are the two small "Fourth of July" plants that were in the pic with the Cherokee Purple. In the lower right corner is the Sugar Baby watermelon.

The begonias I transplanted into pots a week and a half ago are doing well:

The pot of impatiens I've got sitting on my air conditioner in the patio is thriving, and I'm so pleased with it.



I had a round clay flower pot I bought years ago when I lived in California. I'd only used it that year, had never lived in another place where I'd been able to have anything in pots outside. I got it out of the box it had been stored in for over 10 years, filled it up, and planted it with cosmos seeds. When the seedlings emerged a couple weeks later, I put it out on the air conditioner. Less than an hour later it was smashed on the ground. (Another reason the dogs are closed out of the patio unless I'm there to supervise!) The seedlings were smashed along with the planter, but apparently there were some still-unsprouted seeds in the soil. I've got cosmos growing at the base of the air conditioner:



The plants on my home-made plant-shelf are filling out beautifully. If you look in the background, you can see some of the roses that are blooming all along the pole barn:



Yes, the grass is long. No, I don't have a working lawnmower yet. I asked my neighbor to take a look at the "new" one on Tuesday; he fiddled with it for over an hour and didn't get any better result with it than my sis and I did. It'll start easily on starting fluid, but then dies quickly as gas isn't flowing into the engine. I'm going to have to take it into the hardware store in town (per recommendation) and have them fix it. I've got to work up to putting it into the car to get it there, though, it's a heavy sucker.)

Finally, a so-far success story: I climbed up on the stepstool yesterday and got a pic of the new clutch. I could see three baby birds in the nest, and all are kingbirds. I'm keeping a close eye on the weather, and I'll do whatever I can to keep this clutch from dying because of heat like the last ones did.