Toads and Stinging Nettles

I went to my garden to check my tomatoes. Yep they are still there and a few are starting to turn red. I've picked them and some of the large ones before they start splitting. They can ripen up in the windowsill. My garden boxes were full of toads! hopping about!

In the above photo the blurry streaks at the top are a toad's legs as he tried to jump out! I counted 6 in one box. But as I was trying to take photos my leg brushed against something, oooh and it burned! Ithought did I just get bit by a bug...no I just brushed against a plant I had never seen before growing outside one of my garden boxes. It didn't turn red but I was worried it was poison ivy or something like that. Later someone told me it was probably Stinging Nettles, yeah, sure enough, I am glad I didn't touch it with my hands, as I forgot to bring my gardening gloves. (stole this pic from the net, but I think you should know what it looks like and DON'T TOUCH IT! my legs still burn!)


Here are some Goldfinch photos from the coneflowers beside my drive way! Enjoy!

This Garden is for the Birds!

Sometimes, I post more about the wildlife and the birds I see than the actual garden. Today is no exception :P

To be honest my garden this year is a bit of a dud. My cucumber plant drowned..I have to remember to plant it on a mound...clearly, I wasn't thinking. My tomatoes fell over with all the rains we had and although laden with fruit, I need better stakes to keep them standing up. I did pick 2 green peppers, but the plant itself is so puny, I doubt I will get any more from it. My eggplant although has one nice fruit on it, the leaves are completely infested with little black bugs. My small lettuce planting was successful and I ate all of it...not in one sitting!..The beans and zucchini are doing quite well and are very tasty! I have quite a few spaghetti squash a-growin' but I fear that it's location is too close to the edge of the garden and they will get stolen....

So it great compensation, that the garden attracts so many birds. The goldfinches usually take off when I arrive at my garden, but always do fly-by's to see if I have left and if I sit quietly under a nearby tree, they return and I am able to take some photos, but always using the zoom, they just won't let me get too close.

Anyway, on with the bird show:

My Friend Flicker!

Here he is trying to take a dirt bath!