Garden Update and a Dark, Handsome Visitor

I haven't posted in awhile as to the state of my garden. Thank goodness my plants seem to thrive on neglect, because I was gone for a few days in Chicago, and then it was too hot to go outside most of last week. I was outside on Friday, watering the plants (and Nick) with the hose, and I got some nice surprises. Let's start with the front porch. I planted way too many seeds, and thus I have extra tomato plants living here. I believe these are yellow pear tomatoes, or they will be when they're ripe. I bought both Roma and Yellow Pear tomato seeds from the seed saver's exchange, but most of the Roma tomatoes succumbed to either bugs or too much rain. Nature at work, I guess. I love this picture because of the angle. Greg's new camera rocks. You can see my sedum growing in the background, as well as my salvia.

Everything in the actual garden is bigger and greener, except for the carrots, most of which were eaten to the dirt by my bunny "friends." All of the empty spots in the garden were originally either carrots or spinach, and they disappeared due to rabbit reasons. I do have a few carrots left, at least for now.

I think you can see my peppers, basil, tomatoes, and broccoli from here. No flowers on the broccoli yet, but the tomatoes are doing well, and I have enough basil to last literally all year. Oh, and yes, I know that i planted the broccoli too close together. Live and learn. I'll do better next year. I just hope I'll get some broccoli this year. My peppers haven't made any peppers. Actually, I saw a baby one a few weeks ago, but it "mysteriously" disappeared. It was those bastard bunnies, I'm sure.

Here's what I think must be a Bushy Cucumber. Either that or it's some weird alien vegetable.

Oh, look at what's growing. It's. . . oh, it's junk leftover from the fireworks last week. Argh! I've picked up at least ten separate pieces of fireworks debris, and I'm sure there's more. I caught Nick playing with another one of these earlier today. Hopefully they're not harmful.

I love this picture because it catches the blackberries and the sunset at the same time. They're not ripe yet, but they are looking good. The raspberries, unfortunately, are not making raspberries. Just leaves. Sigh.

And here we have. . . (drumroll please) the first tomato of the season! It is a Roma, so at least one of the Roma tomato plants must've survived. It was small but delicious, and I hope that more are to come.

This evening, I had a dark, handsome visitor to my strawberry/catnip patch. He comes from next door and enjoys the ambiance of the mini-garden. I've let this part of my garden go, since the strawberries are done strawberrying, and I mainly just pluck catnip leaves for my cats, who are addicted. So this patch is filled with weeds and tons of flowering catnip. And one happy pussycat.