Hardly a garden.

It has not been a great year so far. The weather has been amazing but I've been so busy.
All I started for seeds were some ancho peppers, mangangi sweet peppers, some king of the north bell peppers and some mitoyo and shooting stars eggplants.
Of course I did manage to get the tomatoes started too. But I was really bad at labeling so I only think I planted chocolate miracle, and sugar white of some sort. I am certain of the Cherokee purple, pruden's purple and black krim.

I bought some cucumber and squash plants from the Bonnie Plant offerings locally.

I finally got them planted and watched my peppers and eggplants begin to disappear one at a time. I thought maybe transplant shock on some. ( Late planting and quick onset of Summer heat - it made sense) Some of the unplanted cucumbers got destroyed because I also bought catnip and foolishly left the pots together in an unsecure location in the yard where the local cats found it and rolled around in it, snapping the cucumber stems below the seed leaves.
So watching the veggies continue to disappear or flop over, I thought maybe cutworms.  I went back to the Bonnie sale and got two very stout black beauty eggplants that were already 4 times the size of my own and installed them.
Within 48 hours one disappeared entirely and the other was lying about 4 feet from its spot with a roughly snapped or twisted off stem.  It was a fairly fresh break and the soil was well soaked so I tucked it back in its spot thinking it just might root itself back. Nothing to lose at that point.
The next day the plant was simply gone and so was one of the two zucchini plants I had just put in.
Went back to Bonnie and restocked.
After work last night I noticed the second zucchini was snapped off and gone.
I was glad I bought extra then. Plus,  more cucumbers.

So, today I have it all replanted and if more plants disappear,  I think I'll simply throw in some random seeds and let the thing go. Maybe do some green manure.

It's so strange.  I did put in beans and radishes in one corner and nothing has bothered them at all.
It is fenced in again this year,  which took forever to accomplish but I won't plant anything until that is done because of all the woodchuck trouble I've had.
I don't quite know if the assassin is coming from above or below.
We do have some gray catbirds this year . Normally I see one here and there but I think 2 pairs might be here now. They got into my strawberries but I wasn't too bothered because that patch needs redoing anyway.  They've enjoyed the cherries, gojis and probably a few blueberries but I don't know what they would want with my pepper and eggplants.
We might have rodents, because when I pulled the 2 year old plastic off this spring the soil around where the Jerusalem artichokes are was tunneled all over and not many JA's ever came up at all.  It was a very thick patch that needed thinning but now there might be 15 plants growing. If that.
Even then,  I have not noticed further evidence of mouse, vole or mole activity.

Every year there's something.

So long Stanley.

Seven years of failing. Black knot, aphids, mold from aphid pee and other assorted associated trouble. Hardly any edible fruit to speak of. I think we got a few the first year, it was very good so I tried just about everything I could to limp this tree along but it is too susceptible and was a losing battle.
I can hear Bea Arthur's voice as Dorothy

 saying good bye to Stanley.

In Stanley's place is a Bonfire peach.  Fruit quality varies by opinion.  I bought it last year at a pretty good discount and it had a rough winter because it was left in the pot  and we had a very cold winter.  Much of the top died off but since I got the plum tree cut down and dug up I had a place to put it finally.
It should recover well.  We've had some warm weather and a good amount of rain this Spring.

This is Bonfire about midsummer last year.

This is also my first attempt at getting into my blog and posting since I finally figured out the email and blog account issue. I have to learn more about formatting through the phone.